Joseph W. Heithaus papers

Taken from http://academic.depauw.edu/jheithaus_web/JoeHome_files/Page266.htm

Joseph Heithaus was born in South Bend, Indiana, the youngest of six children. As his father worked his way up the ranks of the sales division of Chevrolet, General Motors, the family was transferred to his mother and father’s hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio, then Richmond, Virginia, and finally Syracuse, New York. He earned his B.A. from the State University of New York at Albany, lived and worked in New York City for a few years before attending Indiana University where he earned an M.F.A. in poetry and a Ph.D. in American Literature. He has taught at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana since 1996. He and his wife, Jenny, have four children.

Joseph (Joe) Heithaus is University Professor and Professor of English at DePauw University. He won the 2007 “Discovery”/The Nation Prize for a group of sonnets about poison plants that are now the central thread of his first book, Poison Sonnets (David Robert Books 2012). Professor Heithaus earned a Ph.D. and an M.F.A. from Indiana University and his work has appeared in numerous journals including Poetry, The North American Review, The Southern Review, and Prairie Schooner. His poem “Indiana Flight” is etched in the stained glass mural of British artist Martin Donlin in the Indianapolis International Airport. And his poem “What Grows Here” can be found painted on a barn just outside of Greencastle on West Walnut Street.

In 2009, with fellow “Airpoets” Joyce Brinkman and Ruthelen Burns along with Indiana poets JL Kato, and Phoenix Cole, Heithaus made a cultural exchange trip to El Salvador organized in part by Beth Tellman, a fellow Hoosier who was in El Salvador on a Fulbright. After an incredible exchange of poetry, and a life altering experience teaching poetry in the schools of El Salvador, the Indiana poets promised to find ways to bring the poetry of El Salvador, particularly the poetry of four poets from Quezaltepeque, ES back to the U.S. Through generous funding from DePauw, Heithaus returned to Quezaltepeque in January of 2010 and worked with poets Jonathan Velázquez, Héctor Planas, Fabrizzio Sagett and Crosby Lemus on translations of their poems. Heithaus came prepared with a number of rough translations already done by DePauw students. With the help of translator Marvin Gutierrez-Cortez and Beth Telman, chapbooks of their poetry were translated and were produced by Publicaciones Artefacto in late 2011. They also translated some of Heithaus' poems and created a bilingual chapbook of his work as well. Publicaciones Artefacto is a Cartonera publisher, one of many throughout Central and South America dedicated to making books of poetry out of recycled materials so that the books are affordable and, as each is made and decorated by hand, singular works of art. Each of the Indiana poets had their work translated and painted onto a wall near the public square of Quezaltepeque thanks to Camilo Ravey Fonseca and Fundación Quino Caso.