John Wargacki, is an associate professor of English at Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey, where he teaches American Literature, specializing in 19th and Early 20th Century American Poetry. His scholarship focuses on spiritual themes and rhetoric in the American poetic tradition. He has published on the work of Emily Dickinson, Hart Crane, Wallace Stevens, and Robert Frost. John is currently engaged in a book-length study of Spirituality in American Poetry, entitled One Bridge of Fire: American Poetry and the Agon of Belief.
John is passionate about the arts and directed Seton Hall’s well-regarded Poetry-in-the-Round reading series from 2004-2010. Adrienne Rich, W.S. Merwin, David Henry Hwang, and John Ashbery are among the many internationally acclaimed writers who have read on campus during his tenure. He teaches regularly in Seton Hall’s new core curriculum, and participates in the University’s ongoing seminars regarding its Catholic identity and the Catholic Educational Tradition.