Anthony Walton (born 1960) is an American poet and writer. He is perhaps best known as the author of a chapbook of poems, Cricket Weather[1] and for his non-fiction work Mississippi: An American Journey. His work has appeared widely in magazines, journals, and anthologies, including The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Oxford American, and Rainbow Darkness. He is currently a professor and the writer-in-residence at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine.[2]
Walton who is of African American descent, grew up in Aurora, Illinois. Both of his parents were born and raised in Mississippi and although he has never lived there for an extended period, he regularly visits.[3] His father traveled to Illinois in 1952 at the age of 17. His mother was born in 1936 and traveled to Illinois where she met his father and got married.[4] When he was a child his parents would rent a cabin on Lake Michigan near Escanaba, which he has remembered into his adult life.[5] He studied and earned his B.A. at the University of Notre Dame and received an M.F.A. from Brown University.[6]
While studying at the University of Notre Dame he participated in ROTC, and wrote articles for the school newspaper, the observer, and the school magazine, The Scholastic, which helped start his writing career. During his time at the University of Notre Dame he came across the Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens which had a major impact on him.[7]
Upon graduation, Walton moved to New York where he experienced personal torment daily. While in New York he worked for a magazine where he experienced the protest march after the Yusuf Hawkins murder in 1989.[4]
In 1989, Walton wrote an essay for the New York Times Magazine, "Willie Horton and Me," concerning race issues of the time. Walton won a Whiting Award in 1998 in nonfiction.[8] He contributed to By J. Peder Zane's 2004 Remarkable Reads: 34 Writers and Their Adventures in Reading . Walton also helped co-edit The Vintage Book of African American Poetry.[9]
Currently he is a writer-in-residence at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine teaching creative writing and American poetry while also researching a variety of topics.[2]