Biography
Professor Klatt is the author of five collections of poems, including Cloud of Ink, winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize, and Interloper, winner of the Juniper Prize for poetry. His poems have appeared in various magazines and anthologies, among them The New Yorker, Harvard Review, Chicago Review, Denver Quarterly, Poetry Daily, The Believer, Best American Poetry, Image, The Southern Review, Boston Review, Blackbird, and VOLT.
His poetry has inspired several artistic collaborations. “Andrew Wyeth, Painter, Dies at 91” was made into a 90-second animated movie by MotionPoems; “American Concrete” was solicited by New York magazine Surface for a photo essay celebrating architectural innovation in Detroit; and “The Cardboard Fawn” appeared on placards as part of a traveling show on buses in Grand Rapids, where Klatt served as poet laureate.
Besides his creative work, he has also published essays on poets, most notably “The Electric Whitman” in The Southern Review, "Kenneth Koch, Cincinnatian, Poet of Confetti" in The Cincinnati Review, and “Blue Buzz, Blue Guitar: Wallace Stevens and the Poetics of Noisemaking” in The Georgia Review.
He grew up in Cincinnati and found his way to Boston, Pittsburgh, Annapolis, Athens (Georgia), and Cortona, Italy, before settling with his wife in Michigan.
Activities
Professor Klatt recently served as co-editor of Playing with Fire: Christian Poets Reflect on Faith and Practice (Baylor UP, 2026), a collection of essays exploring how Christian poets think about their work, calling, and craft. He also contributed the introductory essay, "An Unbearable Light," and the essay, "Say Green, Say New: Language as a Renewable Resource," to the volume.
His work reflects the role of Calvin faculty in engaging creativity as a meaningful expression of faith and culture-making.
Professor Klatt continues to publish new poems. His latest collection, Saint with a Peacock Voice, came out from Parlor Press in 2025. Recent poems of his have appeared in The Common, The Cincinnati Review, Mississippi Review, Image, Copper Nickel, Willow Springs, and Christianity and Literature.
Currently, he is curating an exhibition celebrating the visual dimension of poetry for the Center Gallery on campus called "The Poem as a Graphic Art," set to be unveiled during spring semester, 2027, when he is on sabbatical.
Favorite Books
- Paul Auster, Ghosts
- Wallace Stevens, Harmonium, The Man with the Blue Guitar
- Crockett Johnson, Harold and the Purple Crayon
- Flannery O’Connor, The Complete Short Stories
- Herodotus, The Histories
Additional Information
- Read an interview and poems from his most recent collection in Cheers! The Flannery O'Connor Newsletter, Vol. 28, No. 1
- Listen to a podcast where he appears with Professor Jane Zwart on the podcast "The Mode/Switch with Craig Mattson"
- Watch an interview with the Kent District Library as part of an "Oral History of Poetry in Grand Rapids."
- Listen to a podcast from The Common, where Professor Klatt is in conversation with poet Oliver de la Paz
- Read one of his poems in Blackbird, The Michigan Poet, or on the blog “As It Ought To Be”
- Read a micro-essay where Professor Klatt glosses Wallace Stevens’s poem “Of the Surface of Things” for Poetry Daily
- Here is an interview with Professor Klatt conducted by MLive
- Read more of Professor Klatt’s poems
Education
Professor Klatt received a bachelor of arts in English from Wittenberg University in 1984 and a masters of divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1991. He then went on to earn a masters of arts in liberal arts from St. John’s College in 1998. He received his PhD in English from the University of Georgia in 2003 with the dissertation topic, “The God is Blue: a Collection of Original Poems with a Manifesto.” He taught in the English department at Calvin College from 2004 to 2006 and returned again to teach in 2007.
Academic Interests
- Creative Writing
- Modern and Postmodern American Poetry
- American Literature
- World Literature
- Creativity
Performances or Exhibitions
Panel Discussion, “Dwelling: Our Watershed in Words and Images.” Plaster Creek Stewards 10th Anniversary Celebration. Calvin University. Grand Rapids, Michigan, October 2019
Lecture and Workshop, “The God-Pleasing Creative Life.” Calvin Prison Initiative. Handlon Correctional Facility. Ionia, Michigan, July 2019
Talk, “Field Notes.” Honors Convocation. Calvin College. Grand Rapids, Michigan, May 2019
Lecture, “The God-Pleasing Creative Life.” Faculty Exchange. Károli Gáspar University. Budapest, Hungary. October, 2018
Lecture, “The Artifice of Eternity. Notes Toward a Christian Poetics.” Faculty Exchange. Károli Gáspar University. Budapest, Hungary. October, 2018.
Lecture, “The Essential Strangeness of Poetry.” Faculty Exchange. Károli Gáspar University. Budapest, Hungary. October, 2018
Seminar, “Us versus Them in Three Stories by Flannery O’Connor.” Faculty Exchange. Károli Gáspar University. Budapest, Hungary. October, 2018.
Conference Director, Organizer, Facilitator, Editor, “Christian Poetics Symposium.” Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. June, 2018.
Interview, “An Interview with Joy Williams.” Festival of Faith and Writing. Calvin College, Grand Rapids, Michigan. April, 2018
Awards
- Artist Fellow, The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Sarasota County, Florida, 2020-2021
- Presidential Award for Exemplary Teaching, 2018
- Poet Laureate of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2014-2017
Publications
