About
Charles O. Hartman’s eighth collection of poems, Downfall of the Straight Line, was published by Arrowsmith Press in 2024. Previous poetry books include New & Selected Poems (Ahsahta, 2008), Island (Ahsahta, 2004), The Long View (Wesleyan, 1999), True North (Copper Beech, 1990), and The Pigfoot Rebellion (Godine, 1982). In 1995 he published both Glass Enclosure (Wesleyan) and Sentences (Sun & Moon), a book-length poem “with computer interventions” in collaboration with Hugh Kenner.
His first book of critical prose was Free Verse: An Essay on Prosody (Princeton 1980, reprinted Northwestern 1996), which has been cited and taught for over four decades. He has also written on poetry and computers (Virtual Muse: Experiments in Computer Poetry, Wesleyan, 1996), and on poetry and music (Jazz Text: Voice and Improvisation in Poetry, Jazz, and Song, Wesleyan, 1991). His textbook, Verse: An Introduction to Prosody, was published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2015. In 2020, he co-edited a volume in the Unsung Masters Series on Wendy Battin: on the Life & Work of an American Master, with Martha Collins, Pamela Alexander, and Matthew Krajniak.
Hartman began playing guitar in about 1960, and has worked with the Southeast Connecticut jazz trio Call Before You Dig since about 2010.
He wrote a number of computer programs to analyze and generate poems, including the Scandroid and PROSE. Working versions of these programs will be added to this site when technical resources permit.
Born in Iowa and raised in Texas, New York, Missouri, and Michigan, he studied at Harvard and at Washington University in St. Louis. After teaching at Northwestern and at the University of Washington, he turned to technical writing for several years before serving as Poet in Resident and Lucy Marsh Haskell ’19 Professor of English at Connecticut College for over three decades.