Dan Schneider (born February 2, 1965) is an American poet and critic of literature and film who runs the criticism and literary website Cosmoetica. Biography Schneider was born in 1965 to an unmarried Minnesota mother. Given up for adoption in New York City, Schneider grew up with a working-class family in the Glendale-Ridgewood neighborhoods of Queens, New York. According to his memoir and press accounts, at age six Schneider witnessed a murder, the first of many. During high school, Schneider was a gang member. , Schneider lives in Texas. Poetry When Schneider was in his mid-20s, he moved to Minnesota to learn more about his biological family. While living in the Twin Cities, Schneider became involved in local poetry readings and poetry slams. Schneider became known for his poetry, ability to critique others, and criticism of academic-style poetry, what he called the incestuous nature of poetry, where writers praised each other's works in a self-promotional cycle. This latter quality made him controversial. In one reported instance, Schneider attended a poetry reading by Robert Bly. During the question-and-answer session, Schneider asked why Bly was "such a lousy poet". Schneider followed this by quoting from an essay Bly once wrote on Robert Lowell, in which Bly talked about the younger generation needing to destroy the old, and how trees needed to burn to save the forest. Schneider said that's what he wanted to do for poetry. Schneider's poetry has been praised by Waswo X. Waswo. Publications In 2008, Schneider's review of British author Zadie Smith's novel White Teeth was a featured excerpt in Contemporary Fiction: The Novel Since 1990, edited by Pamela Bickley, and published by Cambridge University Press. His reviews have also been reprinted or excerpted in a number of places, including on the book Design and Truth from Yale University Press. and in The God Problem: How A Godless Cosmos Creates by Howard Bloom. Schneider's other writings have been published in a number of publications including Monsters & Critics 10,000 Monkeys, Dublin Quarterly, Culture Vulture, No Ripcord Magazine, BlogCritics, CriticalCritics.com, and HackWriters. Media coverage In 1999, the alternative newspaper City Pages (at the time the sister paper of the Village Voice) printed a cover story about Schneider. The article, titled "Dan Schneider vs. the Rest of the World," focused on Schneider's attempts to change what he saw as the incestuous nature of the Twin Cities' poetry scene. In addition to