W. D. Snodgrass

W. D. Snodgrass
BornWilliam De Witt Snodgrass
(1926-01-05)5 January 1926
Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, United States
Died13 January 2009(2009-01-13) (aged 83)
Erieville, New York, United States
Pen name
  • W. D. Snodgrass
  • S. S. Gardons
OccupationPoet, professor
NationalityAmerican
EducationGeneva College
University of Iowa (1949, BA) (1951, MA) (1953, MFA)
Literary movementConfessional poetry
Notable worksHeart's Needle
Notable awardsPulitzer Prize for Poetry (1960)
Spouse
  • Lila Jean Hank
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1946; div. 1953)​
  • Janice Marie Ferguson Wilson
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1954; div. 1966)​
  • Camille Rykowski
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1967; div. 1978)​
  • Kathleen Ann Brown
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1985)​
Children
  • Cynthia Jean Snodgrass
  • Russel Bruce Snodgrass
Relatives
  • Bruce De Witt Snodgrass (Father)
  • Jesse Helen Murchie (Mother)

William De Witt Snodgrass (January 5, 1926 – January 13, 2009) was an American poet.

Snodgrass was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1926.[1]

During World War II he was in the United States Navy in the Pacific area . After the war, he was a student for seven years at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Then he taught at Cornell University, Wayne State, Syracuse University, and the University of Delaware.[2]

His first book of poetry, Heart's Needle, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1960.[3] From 1977, starting with The Fuherer Bunker, he worked on a group of poems that were written in the voices of important people in the Nazi period. This was a problem for some readers.[2] But it was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry.[1]

Books

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  • Heart's Needle (1959)
  • After Experience: Poems and Translations (1968)
  • Leaving the Motel (1968)
  • Remains (1970)
  • In Radical Pursuit: Critical Essays and Lectures (1975)
  • The Führer Bunker: A Cycle of Poems in Progress (1977)
  • If Birds Build with Your Hair (1979)
  • These Trees Stand (1981)
  • Heinrich Himmler (1982)
  • The Boy Made of Meat (1983)
  • Magda Goebbels (1983)
  • D. D. Byrde Callying Jennie Wrenn (1984)
  • The Kinder Capers (1986)
  • A Locked House (1986)
  • Selected Poems: 1957-1987 (1987)
  • W. D.'s Midnight Carnival (1988)
  • The Death of Cock Robin (1989)
  • Each in His Season (1993)
  • The Führer Bunker: The Complete Cycle (1995)
  • After-images: autobiographical sketches (1999)
  • To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry (2002)
  • Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems (2006)
[change | change source]

References

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  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "W. D. Snodgrass". Poets.org. 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Raban, Jonathan (2013). "Snodgrass, W. D. (William De Witt)". Oxford Reference - The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry. Retrieved March 1, 2023.
  3. ↑ "The 1960 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Poetry". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2023. Retrieved March 1, 2023.