Photo by Penny Noah
David Oates (born David Alexander Oates, December 9, 1956, New York, New York, U.S.A.). American performance poet, radio host, writer, and teacher. He is the author of four books, three of which are haiku and senryu. He was founder and editor of Monkey, a magazine of slam poetry and satire, and host/producer of Front Porch Stories, Great Apes, and Wordland, programs on WUGA, the University of Georgia public radio station. Oates’s haikai work has appeared as a weekly feature in The Athens (Georgia) Observer, in numerous anthologies, and in print and online journals. He was coeditor of Biscuit Crumbs, the Haiku Society of America Southeast Region 2018 members’ anthology, and of The Haiku Foundation’s Per Diem blog feature for June 2021. He likes to spread the word about haikai literature in talks to the public and at popular-culture academic conferences. He does standup comedy as an amateur, has written for comic strips, including the nationally syndicated Shoe, and was host/organizer of the Athens Poetry Slam for six years. Oates resides in Athens, Georgia.
Note: This is an abstract of a longer biographical article to come.