About the Poet A mystic symbolist, mythmaker, and master of dense verse, poet William Stanley Merwin concerns himself with America’s isolation and rootlessness. Through careful compartmentalization, he reflects on the future by absorbing himself with preliterate people, primal sources, pacifism, pollution, and the themes of fragmentation, loss, and social and […]
Read more The Poets W. S. Merwin (1927- )The Poets Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)
About the Poet A disciple of American liberties found in the writings of Walt Whitman, Herman Melville, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Irwin Allen Ginsberg was a latter-day prophet of freedom. Unconventional in life and art, he was a gay anarchist and Jew-turned-Buddhist who flaunted eccentricity as a […]
Read more The Poets Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997)The Poets A. R. Ammons (1926-2001)
About the Poet A science-minded businessman late bloomed into rustic bard, Archie Randolph Ammons unintentionally achieved a visionary optimism through lyric analogies. He was influenced by Walt Whitman, Ezra Pound, Robert Frost, and William Carlos Williams. He has earned critical respect for verse essays, meditations, and anthems replete with rural […]
Read more The Poets A. R. Ammons (1926-2001)The Poets Denise Levertov (1923-1997)
About the Poet Poet and critic Denise Levertov, an antiwar, antinuclear activist who was moved to public testimonial, unified life and beliefs with art. Her work was a response to a calling. In her words, she chose to live in an all-out state of alert, “open to the transcendent, the […]
Read more The Poets Denise Levertov (1923-1997)The Poets James Dickey (1923-1997)
About the Poet In answer to the question “Does regional verse still flourish?” James Lafayette Dickey, a giant among mid-to-late twentieth-century Southern poets, provided a yes — a definitive sense of place and person. Dickey, who is grouped with Randall Jarrell, William Styron, Ralph Ellison, and Ernest Gaines, has earned […]
Read more The Poets James Dickey (1923-1997)The Poets Richard Wilbur (1921- )
About the Poet A skilled poet, editor, and teacher, Richard Wilbur is that rarity of the era, the cheerful poet. During World War II, his poetic voice emerged from experiences in southern France and Italy, where he first began writing with one purpose: to impose order on a world gone […]
Read more The Poets Richard Wilbur (1921- )The Poets Robert Lowell (1917-1977)
About the Poet Distinguished in family and literary career, Robert Traill Spence Lowell, Jr., flourished as a teacher, poet, translator, and playwright. His flight from an aristocratic background, numerous emotional breakdowns, and three failed marriages contrasts the bond he shared with the stars of modern American poetry — Randall Jarrell, […]
Read more The Poets Robert Lowell (1917-1977)The Poets Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)
About the Poet A landmark poet, novelist, and autobiographer, Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks is treasured for an abiding humanity strongly grounded on the experiences of wife and mother. A symbol of commitment to her race, she became the first black American to win a Guggenheim Fellowship, American Academy of the Arts […]
Read more The Poets Gwendolyn Brooks (1917-2000)The Poets Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)
About the Poet An intimidating perfectionist wedded to compassionate humanism, Randall Jarrell (pronounced juh rehl) combined the talents of author, translator, and strident critic. Like poet-critic T. S. Eliot, he earned the respect of his elders, including poets John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, and Marianne Moore. Essentially shy and soft-spoken […]
Read more The Poets Randall Jarrell (1914-1965)The Poets John Berryman (1914-1972)
About the Poet John Berryman, a talented scholar driven to write poetry, is best known for transforming his personal suffering into verse. Like Robert Frost and Randall Jarrell, he loved teaching poetry and felt most at home with literature and the humanities. For his own composition, he was adept at […]
Read more The Poets John Berryman (1914-1972)