Galway Kinnell (1927–2014)
Autor von The Book of Nightmares
Über den Autor
Galway Kinnell was born on February 1, 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island. During World War II, he served in the Navy. He received a B.A. from Princeton University in 1948 and a M.A. from the University of Rochester in 1949. He taught writing at many schools around the world, including universities mehr anzeigen in France, Australia, and Iran, and served as director of the creative writing programs at New York University. He wrote several collections of poetry including Body Rags, The Book of Nightmares, Walking down the Stairs, When One Has Lived a Long Time, Imperfect Thirst, and Mortal Acts, Mortal Words. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and a National Book Award for Selected Poems in 1983. He also wrote one novel entitled Black Light. He died from leukemia on October 28, 2014 at the age of 87. (Bowker Author Biography) weniger anzeigen
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Zugehörige Werke
(The Making of a Poem) By Strand, Mark (Author) paperback on (04 , 2001) (2000) — Mitwirkender — 1,261 Exemplare
Die lasterhaften Balladen und Lieder des François Villon (1960) — Übersetzer, einige Ausgaben — 1,054 Exemplare
A Book of Luminous Things: An International Anthology of Poetry (1996) — Mitwirkender — 831 Exemplare
Poetry Speaks Expanded: Hear Poets Read Their Own Work from Tennyson to Plath (2007) — Mitwirkender — 151 Exemplare
The Sophisticated Cat: A Gathering of Stories, Poems, and Miscellaneous Writings About Cats (1992) — Mitwirkender — 99 Exemplare
Buzz Words: Poems About Insects (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets Series) (2021) — Mitwirkender — 32 Exemplare
Possibilities of Poetry: An Anthology of American Contemporaries (1970) — Mitwirkender — 17 Exemplare
New World Writing: Third Mentor Selection - Poetry, Fiction, Drama, Criticism (1953) — Mitwirkender — 6 Exemplare
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Wissenswertes
- Gebräuchlichste Namensform
- Kinnell, Galway
- Rechtmäßiger Name
- Kinnell, Galway Mills
- Geburtstag
- 1927-02-01
- Todestag
- 2014-10-28
- Geschlecht
- male
- Nationalität
- USA
- Geburtsort
- Providence, Rhode Island, USA
- Sterbeort
- Sheffield, Vermont, USA
- Wohnorte
- Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Pawtucket, Rhode Island, USA - Ausbildung
- Princeton University
University of Rochester - Berufe
- poet
- Organisationen
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1980)
CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) - Preise und Auszeichnungen
- Shelley Memorial Award (1971/1972)
Frost Medal (2002)
Amy Lowell Travelling Fellowship in Poetry (1969-1970)
American Academy of Arts and Letters Academy Award ( [1962])
Poet Laureate of Vermont (1989-1993)
Wallace Stevens Award (2010)
Mitglieder
Diskussionen
Rainer Maria Rilke in Someone explain it to me... (April 2015)
Rezensionen
Clearly great and yet not quite for me. Another day, another mood...
I.
I was first introduced to Galway Kinnell in graduate school nearly 30 years ago, and for some time, he was my favorite poet. I recall coming home for spring break and I was asked to say a blessing before dinner. I recited Kinnell's "Prayer":
My stepmother's wide-eyed gaze was my answer to that prayer.
II.
I had not read Body Rags for some time; it has been collecting dust along with all of the rest of my Kinnell collection. I found my way back to Body Rags while reading Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing. On page 116, Owens cites snippets of "this one by Galway Kinnell"--a poem that is otherwise untitled.
I recognized this poem as part of "The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students," and I could not recall the volume from which it came. I ultimately found it in Body Rags. (As an aside, this snippet was in a chapter in Crawdads titled "Crossing the Threshold: 1960." That date seemed early to me for this poem; I confirmed that Body Rags was first published in 1965. But I digress.)
So I dusted off the cover and began to read, again. I'd always liked "Instructor" for both its humor and commentary on the poet's work and craftsmanship. Ironically, it is this same poem that clarifies my own apostatizing from Kinnell, the poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award Winner. From the second stanza:
III.
"The Porcupine" has long been one of my favorite Kinnell poems. I repeat its first stanza here:
The language ("bast", "phloem", "catkins", "larch") is as unique as the title, and flows with mellifluous "l"s ("swollen", "phloem", "ballooned", "willow flowers", "larch") whose playfulness with alliterative bouncy "b"s ("herbs", "crabapples", "bast", "ballooned", "bounces") creates an image of a porcupine waddling along. No doubt it is "poetic" language. But is it poetry? How is this stanza different from Kinnell's own "chopped prose" reassembled below?
IV.
Poetry requires structure and meter. Free verse is art; it can be beautiful language; but it is not poetry. It is, as Kinnell himself allows, "chopped prose". On that basis, Body Rags is a strong collection of chopped prose.… (mehr)
I was first introduced to Galway Kinnell in graduate school nearly 30 years ago, and for some time, he was my favorite poet. I recall coming home for spring break and I was asked to say a blessing before dinner. I recited Kinnell's "Prayer":
Whatever happens. Whatever
what is is is what
I want. Only that. But that.
My stepmother's wide-eyed gaze was my answer to that prayer.
II.
I had not read Body Rags for some time; it has been collecting dust along with all of the rest of my Kinnell collection. I found my way back to Body Rags while reading Delia Owens' Where the Crawdads Sing. On page 116, Owens cites snippets of "this one by Galway Kinnell"--a poem that is otherwise untitled.
I did care...
I did say everything I thought
In het mildest words I knew. And now,...
I have to say I am relieved I tis over:
At the end I could feel only pity
For that urge toward more life.
...Goodbye.
I recognized this poem as part of "The Correspondence School Instructor Says Goodbye To His Poetry Students," and I could not recall the volume from which it came. I ultimately found it in Body Rags. (As an aside, this snippet was in a chapter in Crawdads titled "Crossing the Threshold: 1960." That date seemed early to me for this poem; I confirmed that Body Rags was first published in 1965. But I digress.)
So I dusted off the cover and began to read, again. I'd always liked "Instructor" for both its humor and commentary on the poet's work and craftsmanship. Ironically, it is this same poem that clarifies my own apostatizing from Kinnell, the poet laureate, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award Winner. From the second stanza:
...And now,
in this poem, or chopped prose, not any better,
I realize, than those troubled lines...
III.
"The Porcupine" has long been one of my favorite Kinnell poems. I repeat its first stanza here:
Fatted
on herbs, swollen on crabapples,
puffed up on bast and phloem, ballooned
on willow flowers, poplar catkins, first
leafs of aspen and larch,
the porcupine
drags and bounces his last meal through ice,
mud, roses and goldenrod, not the stubbly high fields.
The language ("bast", "phloem", "catkins", "larch") is as unique as the title, and flows with mellifluous "l"s ("swollen", "phloem", "ballooned", "willow flowers", "larch") whose playfulness with alliterative bouncy "b"s ("herbs", "crabapples", "bast", "ballooned", "bounces") creates an image of a porcupine waddling along. No doubt it is "poetic" language. But is it poetry? How is this stanza different from Kinnell's own "chopped prose" reassembled below?
Fatted on herbs, swollen on crabapples, puffed up on bast and phloem, ballooned on willow flowers, poplar catkins, first leafs of aspen and larch, the porcupine drags and bounces his last meal through ice, mud, roses and goldenrod, not the stubbly high fields.
IV.
Poetry requires structure and meter. Free verse is art; it can be beautiful language; but it is not poetry. It is, as Kinnell himself allows, "chopped prose". On that basis, Body Rags is a strong collection of chopped prose.… (mehr)
The late Galway Kinnell (1927 - 2014) was a Pulitzer Prize-winner and former poet laureate of the state of Vermont. This giant tome covers 68 years of Galway Kinnell's poetry, dated from 1946 to 2014. The writings are organized in chronological order by the year published and feature over 250 poems, including one of my favorites: After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
Note: I received an advance reading copy from Goodreads and Houghton Mifflin.… (mehr)
For I can snore like a bullhorn
or play loud music
or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
and Fergus will only sink deeper
into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
but let there be that heavy breathing
or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
and he will wrench himself awake
and make for it on the run—as now, we lie together,
after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
familiar touch of the long-married,
and he appears—in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
the neck opening so small he has to screw them on—
and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
In the half darkness we look at each other
and smile
and touch arms across this little, startlingly muscled body—
this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
this blessing love gives again into our arms.
Note: I received an advance reading copy from Goodreads and Houghton Mifflin.… (mehr)
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Brothers and sisters;
lovers and children;
great mothers and grand fathers
whose love-times have been cut
already into stone; great
grand foetuses spelling
the past again into the flesh's waters:
can you bless - or not curse -
whatever struggles to stay alive
on this planet of struggles?
The nagleria eating the convolutions
from the black pulp of thought,
or the spirochete rotting down
the last temples of Eros, the last god?
- from There Are Things I Tell to No One… (mehr)