Lannan Foundation

Campbell McGrath is the author of six full-length collections of poetry, including American Noise and, most recently, Pax Atomica. In his Florida Poems, he catalogues Florida’s natural wonders and historical figureheads, from Spanish explorer Ponce de Len to Walt Disney, early American botanist William Bartram to Chuck E. Cheese—"the bewhiskered Mephistopheles of ring toss/the diabolical vampire of our transcendent ideals.”

Of his influences he says, “I tend to be kind of an Americanist. American culture I absorb at every level—I really like American popular culture, and high culture, to the degree that there’s any distinction. I really like reading People magazine and watching Scooby Doo with my kids.”

McGrath, who received a MacArthur Fellowship in 1999, teaches in the MFA program at Florida International University and lives in Miami Beach.