Coming to Age
Page 12
ABOUT THE POETS
AGOSÍN, MARJORIE (1955–)
Born in Chile, Agosín is a Chilean American who has written close to twenty books of poetry, fiction, and literary criticism. She has received Chilean government recognition for her activism on women’s rights. She was also honored by the United Nations for her human rights work. Immigration and displacement are frequent themes in her poetry. She is a Spanish professor at Wellesley College, and her most recent collection is Harbors of Light (2016).
ALEXANDER, ELIZABETH (1962–)
Born in Harlem, New York City, Alexander is a poet, educator, and arts activist. She was raised primarily in Washington, DC, where her father was chair of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She has taught at numerous universities, including Yale, where she was chair of the Department of African American Studies. She is currently president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. At the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama, she recited her poem “Praise Song for the Day,” written for the ceremony. She is author or co-author of fourteen books. Her memoir, The Light of the World (2015), was a finalist for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.
AMMONS, A. R. (1926–2001)
Twice a winner of a National Book Award (1973 and 1993), Ammons grew up in rural North Carolina during the Great Depression. He began writing while stationed on the battleship escort USS Gunason during World War II. Following the war and after gaining a university degree, he held various jobs, eventually becoming the Goldwin Smith Professor of English and poet-in-residence at Cornell University. Recognized widely as a major American poet, Ammons once remarked, “I never dreamed of being a Poet poet. I think I always wanted to be an amateur poet.” A Coast of Trees (1981) won the National Book Critics Circle Award.
ANACREON (C. 582–485 BC)
This Greek lyric poet was primarily a writer of hymns and drinking songs, written to be accompanied by the music of the lyre, a small harp. His principal themes include love and its disappointments, revelry, and the ordinary life of his fellow citizens.
ASHBERY, JOHN (1927–2017)
The recipient of many awards, including the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for his breakout collection Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror, Ashbery published more than thirty volumes of poetry. Born in Rochester, New York, he was raised on a farm near Lake Ontario. While many find his poetry obscure, Ashbery said: “My poetry imitates or reproduces the way knowledge comes to me, which is by fits and starts… I don’t think poetry arranged in neat patterns would reflect that situation. My poetry is disjunct, but then so is life.” John Ashbery: Collected Poems 1991–2000 was published in 2017.
AUDEN, W. H. (1907–1973)
One of the great twentieth-century poets, Auden combined a wide-ranging intelligence and a great command of the English language. He wrote poems in nearly every form. From the time he entered the University of Oxford, his talents were immediately apparent. In 1939 he and fellow poet Christopher Isherwood immigrated to the United States; he became a citizen in 1946. His works include plays, essays, and political commentary, many of them written in collaboration with fellow poets. His Collected Poems was published in 1976.
BERRY, WENDELL (1934–)
Whether he is writing poetry, essays, or fiction, Berry’s overriding concern has been living in harmony with the earth. He has pursued his twin interests of agriculture and the environment while living on a farm in Kentucky near where he was born and raised. The World-Ending Fire (2017) is a volume of essays drawing parallels between how we treat the land and how we treat each other. The Art of Loading Brush came out in 2017 as well.
BISHOP, ELIZABETH (1911–1979)
While Bishop published only 101 poems during her lifetime, others have been published posthumously, and her audience has continued to grow. After an unsettled childhood—her father died during her first year and her mother was institutionalized when Bishop was five—she was raised by her grandparents. Her poetry has two major themes: close observation of the natural world and human grief and alienation. She also worked as a painter. Among her many honors were the 1956 Pulitzer Prize and the 1970 National Book Award for poetry. Elizabeth Bishop: Prose, Poems, and Letters was published in 2008.
BODENHEIM, MAXWELL (1892–1954)
A prominent literary personage first in Chicago and then in New York City, Bodenheim published nine books of poetry and thirteen novels during his lifetime. His success was later compromised by personal behavior during the Prohibition years. He ended his life as a vagrant. My Life and Loves in Greenwich Village, mostly ghostwritten, was published posthumously in 1954.
BOOTH, PHILIP (1925–2007)
Booth’s ten volumes of poetry reflect a life lived primarily in New England. In direct language his writings express the everyday concerns of New Englanders and how they live simultaneously on the land and the coastline, both actually and metaphorically. His awards included the Poets’ Prize for Lifelines: Selected Poems 1950–1999.
BORGES, JORGE LUIS (1899–1986)
A major figure in Spanish-language literature, Borges was a writer of short stories, essays, and poems as well as a translator. Born in Argentina, he moved with his family to Switzerland, where he attended college. He returned to Buenos Aires in 1921 and worked as a librarian, eventually becoming director of the National Public Library and a professor of English literature at the University of Buenos Aires. As his eyesight deteriorated (he became totally blind in his mid-fifties), he turned increasingly to writing poetry, as he could keep an entire work in progress in his mind. He wrote: “When I think of what I’ve lost, I ask, ‘Who knows themselves better than the blind?’—for every thought becomes a tool.” In 1961 he received the first Prix International, which he shared with Samuel Beckett. In 1962 two anthologies of his work came out in English: Ficciones and Labyrinths.
BROWNING, ROBERT (1812–1889)
Born in London, Browning is among the most important English authors of the Victorian era. His father’s vast collection of six thousand books in a variety of languages had a great impact on him. Along with Alfred Tenneyson and Dante Rossetti, he perfected the dramatic monologue. In 1845 he met the poet Elizabeth Barrett and married her the following year. They moved to Italy, where they lived until his death. His most famous poem is The Ring and the Book, a twenty-thousand-line poem in blank verse, published in twelve volumes from 1868 to 1869.
CARVER, RAYMOND (1938–1988)
Carver was born in Clatskanie, Oregon, and grew up in Yakima, Washington, where his father worked in a sawmill. Carver senior was a storyteller whose tales about himself, his father, and his grandfather influenced his son. Known more as a writer of fiction than as a poet, Carver helped revitalize the short story. He was a National Book Award finalist in 1977 for his story collection Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his story collection Cathedral in 1984. He published eight volumes of poetry, the last, A New Path to the Waterfall, posthumously in 1989.
CAVAFY, C. P. (1863–1933)
Cavafy, an Egyptian Greek poet born in Alexandria, is considered the most important poet of the twentieth century writing in Greek. Characterized as unique by most of his contemporaries, he was described by E. M. Forster, one of his British admirers, as standing at “a slight angle to the universe.” Cavafy lived in Alexandria almost his entire life, first with his mother until she died and then for the last twenty-five years alone. Although he had little formal education, he was a keen student of Greek history and well-read in both English and French. The Collected Poems of C. P. Cavafy: A New Translation, translated by Aliki Barnstone, was published in 2007.
CLIFTON, LUCILLE (1936–2010)
An American poet, writer, and educator from Buffalo, New York, Clifton was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In 2000 she received a National Book Award for Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988–2000. Her work explores the black female experience in all its aspects. It is recognized for being both concise and straightforward. As she noted: �
��I would like to be seen as a woman whose roots go back to Africa, who tried to honor being human.” The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton 1965–2010 was published posthumously in 2012.
COLLINS, BILLY (1941–)
Born in New York City, Billy Collins was selected as the US Poet Laureate for 2001 to 2003. In 2016 he retired as a Distinguished Professor after almost fifty years of teaching at the City University of New York in the MFA program and at several other universities. His lighthearted, witty style, often covering underlying serious concerns, has made him one of the country’s most popular poets. The Rain in Portugal: Poems was published in 2016.
CUMMINGS, E. E. (1894–1962)
Poet, essayist, and playwright, Cummings was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His experiments with poetic forms and diction resulted in a new kind of poetry. He is most known for his use of lowercase letters and his unconventional placement of words on the page; both contribute to the playful ambiguity of his poems. A revised and expanded edition of E. E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904–1962 was published in 2016.
DICKINSON, EMILY (1830–1886)
One of the greatest American poets, Dickinson was born and lived most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her brief poems pushed the boundaries of the poetic conventions of the time by introducing short lines and unusual capitalization, and using rhyme words with close but not identical sounds. Few of her poems were published until after her death, and even when published, they were often changed by early editors to meet conventional poetic norms. The wide-ranging subject matter in her work is a tribute to the extraordinary power of her imagination. The home where she lived in self-chosen seclusion and the room in which she wrote are now open to the public. The Poems of Emily Dickinson: Reading Edition was published in 2005.
DUFFY, CAROL ANN (1955–)
Born in Glasgow, Duffy is a poet and a playwright. She was named British Poet Laureate in 2009, and she is a professor of contemporary poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University. Her poems are often feminist in nature, speaking to the current concerns of women. Her most recent poems are about important historical events looked at from a female perspective. The World’s Wife was published in 2007.
DUGAN, ALAN (1923–2003)
Dugan’s first book of poetry, Poems (1961), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets award and went on to receive both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize in 1962. He maintained his high writing standards throughout his career. His work centered on daily life with its recurring ups and downs, often leavened with a dry sense of humor. Poems Seven: New and Complete Poetry was published in 2001.
EBERHART, RICHARD (1904–2005)
Eberhart won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1966 for Selected Poems 1930–1965 and the National Book Award for Poetry in 1977 for Collected Poems 1930–1976. As he was born and raised in Minnesota, many of his poems reflect a rural upbringing as well as his later work as a ship’s hand. Interestingly, in his youth he was briefly a tutor to the son of the king of Siam. Eberhart taught at numerous colleges, including Dartmouth, where he became professor emeritus. He was widely admired for his style and his lyricism. New and Selected Poems 1930–1990 was published in 1990.
EMERSON, RALPH WALDO (1803–1882)
Born in Boston, Emerson is a seminal American poet, essayist, and philosopher. His writings and lectures promoted the values of individualism and self-reliance. He was a leader of the transcendental movement with its core belief in the essential goodness of people and nature. He wrote: “To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field, it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which will never be seen again.” Ralph Waldo Emerson: Collected Poems and Translations was published by the Library of America in 1994.
EWART, GAVIN (1916–1995)
Ewart’s first book, Poems and Songs, was published when he was only seventeen. He was born in London, and his active service during World War II interrupted his writing career. After the war he became an advertising copywriter and did not return to poetry until he reached his forties. He then published a number of popular collections of his own verse as well as edited numerous anthologies. The Collected Ewart 1933–1980 was followed by Collected Poems 1980–1990.
FEINSTEIN, ELAINE (1930–)
Feinstein is an English poet, short-story writer, and playwright. Her Russian Jewish heritage places her in close accord with Russian poets of both the last and this century. Inspired by the poems of Maria Tsvetayeva, Feinstein commented that she wants “lines that come singing out of poems with a perfection of phrasing like lines of music.” Among the other influences on her work are the writings of Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams. Her volume Cities was published in 2010.
FROST, ROBERT (1874–1963)
Frost, born in San Francisco, moved to New England with his family after the early death of his father. This great American poet’s work was first published in England. He won four Pulitzer Prizes, among countless other honors. Famously, at the 1961 inauguration of President Kennedy, after sunlight prevented him from reading his prepared remarks, he recited by heart his poem “The Gift Outright,” which he had written twenty years earlier. At the time he was eighty-eight years old. The Poetry of Robert Frost was published in 1969.
GLÜCK, LOUISE (1943–)
Glück received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1993 for The Wild Iris and the National Book Award for Poetry in 2014 for Faithful and Virtuous Night. Born in New York City and raised on Long Island, Glück is considered one of the leading contemporary poets, her work often grouped with others of the confessional and subjective school. Her poems explore the darker aspects of life in straightforward and precise diction. She is writer-in-residence at Yale University and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Poems 1962–2012 was published in 2012.
GOLDBARTH, ALBERT (1948–)