Poetry, Karl Kirchwey learned in college, “could be a vocation . . . you could devote your life to it.”

It was a lesson Kirchwey (right), the new director of BU’s Creative Writing Program, took to heart. Over the past 35 years, he has authored six collections of poems, a play in verse, and a translation of poems by the French poet Paul Verlaine. He also has an extensive dossier as an arts administrator, first as director of the Unterberg Poetry Center in New York and then as the Andrew Heiskell Arts Director at the American Academy in Rome—the first writer appointed to the post.

At BU, Kirchwey succeeds longtime director Leslie Epstein, who remains a CAS professor of English. Under Epstein, the Creative Writing Program grew significantly in stature. In 1978, when Epstein became director, the fiction program had 25 applicants for 13 spots; in 2014, it had 267 applicants for 10 positions and the poetry program 122 applicants for 8 positions.

“Karl thrives on interdisciplinary activity and will go out of his way to make connections with other departments in the College and with the College of Fine Arts in particular,” says Professor of English Bonnie Costello, who chaired the search committee for a new director.

Kirchwey laughs when asked about his teaching style. “I subscribe to the enthusiastic method,” he says. “For me, the opportunity to talk about poems in the company of other people who care about poetry is huge—it’s a huge privilege and an opportunity.”