Todd Boss(II)
- Producer
- Writer
- Actor
Todd Boss is the author of three acclaimed poetry collections from W. W. Norton & Co., executive producer of more than 150 poetry films, a multimedia installation artist, a lyricist on Grammy-nominated projects, and inventor of The Laptop Strap. In 2018, he sold everything he owned, quit his lease in Minneapolis, and began house-sitting his way around the world.
Boss's pared-down, idea-driven poems are infused with internal rhyme and propulsive rhythms. They balance clarity with a nuanced attention to sound. He is the author of three poetry collections, Tough Luck (2016), Pitch (2012), and Yellowrocket (2008), all by W. W. Norton & Company. Tony Hogland observed: "There is a rich physicality in all of Todd Boss's poems, a reverent gusto for representing the tactile aspects of human life. The poems are never pretentious but always acrobatic, sensuous, technically inventive, muscular and fun." Critic Elizabeth Lund wrote in The Christian Science Monitor that Boss "balanc[es] raw beauty with traditionally poetic topics: growing up on a farm, marriage, and fatherhood. ... Boss's writing aches with subtle music, insight, and clearsighted compassion."
Since 2008, Boss has served as the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, a leading producer of award-winning poetry films, online at motionpoems.org. Motionpoems has been recognized with an Innovations in Reading Award from the National Book Foundation, and had adapted poems by Pulitzer-winning and early-career writers alike, including a series of films for children produced in association with the Poetry Foundation.
His lyrics, written primarily for composer Jake Runestad, have been performed at Kennedy Center and throughout the world. Two of his texts appear on a Grammy-nominated Conspirare choral album of Runestad's work (2019). Boss's one-man opera, Panic, adapted from Knut Hamsun's 1895 novella Pan, premiered in 2012. Poems from his acclaimed book Yellowrocket make up composer Matt Boehler's Foursquare Cathedral song cycle, which won NATS' 2017 Art Song Composition Award and was hailed by judges as "...absolutely brilliant, from the first note to the last...an engaging dramatic sense, and a wonderful choice of poems."
As a public artist, Boss creates large-scale multimedia installations in public spaces, often including poetry, most notably a month-long "meditation garden" in the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis that marked the 5th anniversary of the 35W Bridge collapse in 2012, and the permanent installation of a virtual reality thrill ride onboard the Green Line light rail between Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2017.
Boss holds several patents for consumer electronics accessories. He has also worked as a PR executive, a nonprofit arts administrator, a journalist, a teacher, and a business consultant.
"I write poetry for people who don't like poetry," says Boss, betraying a passion consistent with a lifetime spent adapting poems for film, public, and performing arts. Boss grew up on a cattle farm in west central Wisconsin, the son of working-class people, and was educated at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he received an MFA. His poetry has been featured in The New Yorker, NPR, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The London Times, and elsewhere, and anthologized in Best American Poetry and several Norton and Bedford literature anthologies.
Boss's first poetry collection, Yellowrocket, was named one of the 10 best poetry books of 2008 by Virginia Quarterly Review and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His second book, Pitch, won the 2012 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for Poetry. His honors include the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, the Virginia Quarterly Review Emily Clark Balch Prize, ten Pushcart Prize nominations, and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
Boss's pared-down, idea-driven poems are infused with internal rhyme and propulsive rhythms. They balance clarity with a nuanced attention to sound. He is the author of three poetry collections, Tough Luck (2016), Pitch (2012), and Yellowrocket (2008), all by W. W. Norton & Company. Tony Hogland observed: "There is a rich physicality in all of Todd Boss's poems, a reverent gusto for representing the tactile aspects of human life. The poems are never pretentious but always acrobatic, sensuous, technically inventive, muscular and fun." Critic Elizabeth Lund wrote in The Christian Science Monitor that Boss "balanc[es] raw beauty with traditionally poetic topics: growing up on a farm, marriage, and fatherhood. ... Boss's writing aches with subtle music, insight, and clearsighted compassion."
Since 2008, Boss has served as the founding Executive and Artistic Director of Motionpoems, a leading producer of award-winning poetry films, online at motionpoems.org. Motionpoems has been recognized with an Innovations in Reading Award from the National Book Foundation, and had adapted poems by Pulitzer-winning and early-career writers alike, including a series of films for children produced in association with the Poetry Foundation.
His lyrics, written primarily for composer Jake Runestad, have been performed at Kennedy Center and throughout the world. Two of his texts appear on a Grammy-nominated Conspirare choral album of Runestad's work (2019). Boss's one-man opera, Panic, adapted from Knut Hamsun's 1895 novella Pan, premiered in 2012. Poems from his acclaimed book Yellowrocket make up composer Matt Boehler's Foursquare Cathedral song cycle, which won NATS' 2017 Art Song Composition Award and was hailed by judges as "...absolutely brilliant, from the first note to the last...an engaging dramatic sense, and a wonderful choice of poems."
As a public artist, Boss creates large-scale multimedia installations in public spaces, often including poetry, most notably a month-long "meditation garden" in the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis that marked the 5th anniversary of the 35W Bridge collapse in 2012, and the permanent installation of a virtual reality thrill ride onboard the Green Line light rail between Minneapolis and St. Paul in 2017.
Boss holds several patents for consumer electronics accessories. He has also worked as a PR executive, a nonprofit arts administrator, a journalist, a teacher, and a business consultant.
"I write poetry for people who don't like poetry," says Boss, betraying a passion consistent with a lifetime spent adapting poems for film, public, and performing arts. Boss grew up on a cattle farm in west central Wisconsin, the son of working-class people, and was educated at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota, and at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he received an MFA. His poetry has been featured in The New Yorker, NPR, Poetry, American Poetry Review, The London Times, and elsewhere, and anthologized in Best American Poetry and several Norton and Bedford literature anthologies.
Boss's first poetry collection, Yellowrocket, was named one of the 10 best poetry books of 2008 by Virginia Quarterly Review and was a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award. His second book, Pitch, won the 2012 Midwest Booksellers' Choice Award for Poetry. His honors include the Glenna Luschei Prairie Schooner Award, the Virginia Quarterly Review Emily Clark Balch Prize, ten Pushcart Prize nominations, and grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.