Mark Cox '78, Poet & Professor

Mark Cox earned his BA at DePauw in 1978 and his MFA from Vermont College. He is currently a professor of creative writing at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, where he teaches modern and contemporary American poetry, international poetry, practical criticism, and literary history. His honors include a Whiting Writers’ Award, a Pushcart Prize, the Oklahoma Book Award, The Society of Midland Authors Poetry Prize, and numerous fellowships.  He also teaches in the Vermont College of Fine Arts (VCFA) MFA in Writing Program, one of the first low-residency programs in the country.

He says of his teaching, “My workshops place equal emphasis on matters of process and matters of craft, and are meant to offer students the practical exercises and theoretical knowledge that will allow them to pursue individual vision while staying in touch with the collective tradition.”

He is the author of four books of poetry:  Barbells of the Gods (Ampersand, 1988), Smoulder(Godine, 1989), Thirty‑Seven Years from the Stone (Pitt Poetry Series, 1998), and Natural Causes(Pitt Poetry Series, 2004).