Galway Kinnell
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| - | + | '''Galway Kinnell''' (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) was an American poet. For his 1982 ''Selected Poems'' he won the [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]] and split the [[National Book Award for Poetry]] with [[Charles Wright (poet)|Charles Wright]]. From 1989 to 1993 he was [[poet laureate]] for the state of [[Vermont]]. | |
| - | '''Galway Kinnell''' (born February 1st, 1927 in [[Providence, Rhode Island]]) is one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century. An admitted follower of [[Walt Whitman]], Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems, such as "St. Francis and the Sow" and "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps," stand as testaments to the significant possibilities for transcendent realization that can be induced by meticulous excavation of the physical universe. | + | |
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| - | Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Kinnell said that as a youth he was turned on to [[poetry]] by [[Edgar Allan Poe]] and [[Emily Dickinson]], drawn to both the musical appeal of their poetry and the idea that they led solitary lives. The allure of the language spoke to what he describes as the homogeneous feel of his hometown, [[Pawtucket, Rhode Island]]. | + | |
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| - | Kinnell studied at [[Princeton University]], graduating in 1948 alongside friend and fellow poet [[W.S. Merwin]]. He received his master of arts degree from the [[University of Rochester]]. He traveled extensively in [[Europe]] and the [[Middle East]], and went to [[Paris]] on a [[Fulbright Fellowship]]. During the 1960s, the [[Civil Rights Movement]] in the [[United States]] caught his attention. Upon returning to the US, he joined CORE ([[Congress of Racial Equality]]) and worked on voter registration and workplace integration in [[Hammond, Louisiana]]. This effort got him arrested. Kinnell draws upon both his involvement with the civil rights movement and his experiences protesting against the [[Vietnam War]] in his book-long poem ''The Book of Nightmares''. | + | |
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| - | While much of Kinnell's work seems to deal with social issues, it is by no means confined to one subject. Some critics have pointed to the spiritual dimensions of his poetry, as well as the nature imagery present throughout his work. “The Fundamental Project of Technology” deals with all three of those elements, creating an eerie, chant-like and surreal exploration of the horrors atomic weapons inflict on humanity and nature. Sometimes Kinnell utilizes simple and brutal images (“Lieutenant! / This corpse will not stop burning!” from “The Dead Shall be Raised Incorruptible”) to address his anger at the destructiveness of humanity, informed by Kinnell’s activism and love of nature. There’s also a certain sadness in all of the horror—“Nobody would write poetry if the world seemed perfect.” There’s also optimism and beauty in his quiet, ponderous language, especially in the large role animals and children have in his later work (“Other animals are angels. Human babies are angels”), evident in poems such as “Daybreak” and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”. | + | |
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| - | In addition to his works of poetry and his translations, Kinnell published one novel (''Black Light'', 1966) and one children's book (''How the Alligator Missed Breakfast'', 1982). A close friend of James Wright until Wright's death in 1980, Kinnell's two elegies to Wright appear in ''From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright. | + | |
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| - | Kinnell was the [[Erich Maria Remarque]] Professor of Creative Writing at [[New York University]] and a Chancellor of the [[American Academy of Poets]]. He is now retired and resides at his home in Vermont. | + | |
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| ==Works== | ==Works== | ||
| * ''What a Kingdom It Was'' (1960) | * ''What a Kingdom It Was'' (1960) | ||
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Galway Kinnell (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) was an American poet. For his 1982 Selected Poems he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and split the National Book Award for Poetry with Charles Wright. From 1989 to 1993 he was poet laureate for the state of Vermont.
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Works
- What a Kingdom It Was (1960)
- Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock (1964)
- Black Light (1966)
- Body Rags (1968)
- The Book of Nightmares (1971)
- The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World: Poems 1946-64 (1974)
- Walking Down the Stairs (a collection of interviews) (1978).
- Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980)
- After Making Love We Hear Footsteps (1980)
- Selected Poems (1982) Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award
- How the Alligator Missed Breakfast (1982)
- The Past (1985)
- When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone (1990)
- Three Books (1993)
- Imperfect Thirst (1996)
- A New Selected Poems (2000) National Book Award finalist.
- Strong Is Your Hold(2006)
- Blackberry Eating
He has also published translations of Yves Bonnefoy, Yvanne Goll, François Villon, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Galway Kinnell" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.
