HWS News
31 October 2025 • Faculty Babbitt Publishes on Blake
New collection of poetry examines and intertwines the life of William Blake.
In his newest book, A Grain of Sand in Lambeth, Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric and English and Creative Writing Geoffrey Babbitt showcases the world of William Blake through poetry.
A Grain of Sand in Lambeth will be available for purchase on Dec. 2. Preorder the book here.
Drawing on Blake’s own rejection of tradition and his relentless quest to challenge the boundaries of art, Babbitt confronts the tensions between genius and convention, life and death, light and dark. Each poem in this collection inhabits a moment of Blake’s life, offering a vivid glimpse into his unique perspective.
"Geoffrey Babbitt adds to the small but growing canon of anarcho-scholastic criticism with this wonderful volume focusing on William Blake,” writes Kazim Ali, professor of English at the University of California, San Diego, and the author of Sukun. “Part biography, part ekphrasis, all rapture—a fitting engagement to the inexplicable coruscating genius of Blake that paints the clearest picture of his time and his work."
The 2023 Betsy Joiner Flanagan Poetry Prize Winner, Babbitt has taught at HWS since 2012. His poems and essays have been featured in North American Review, Pleiades, Colorado Review, DIAGRAM, Ben Johnson Journal, Notre Dame Review, Washington Square, Cincinnati Review and elsewhere. He is the author of Appendices Pulled from a Study on Light. Babbitt serves as the editor in chief of Seneca Review and Seneca Review Books, for which he co-founded the Deborah Tall Lyric Essay Book Prize. He teaches courses on poetry, creative writing and journalism. He earned a bachelor’s degree from Connecticut College and a master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Utah.
Top: Associate Professor of Writing and Rhetoric and English and Creative Writing Geoffrey Babbitt leads a class discussion during “Creative Writing” in Delancy House.
