Robert Lowell's Poetry and Prose

Highlights of Poetry. Index of poetry. How to Write Poetry. New Books read.

How to write specific forms:
Haibun. Haiku. Hay(na)ku. Rengay. Tanka. Tanka surveys.
Concrete. Ghazal. Lai. Pantoum. Prose poem. Rondeau. Rubáiyát.
Sestina. Skaldic verse. Sonnet. Terza rima. Triolet. Tritina. Villanelle.

Poet peers: Delmore Schwartz. Elizabeth Bishop.
John Berryman. Randall Jarrell. Robert Lowell. Sylvia Plath.

J. Zimmerman. J. Zimmerman (haiku). J. Zimmerman (tanka).

Data.

Attended Harvard College for two years.
Transferred to Kenyon College, Ohio, to study with John Crowe Ransom. Roomed with poet Randall Jarrell.
Converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism.
Conscientious objector during World War II; imprisoned for several months at the Danbury (Connecticut) federal prison.
Active in the 1960s in the civil rights movement and the opposition to U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
Alcoholism; manic depression; hospitalized frequently.

Time Line.

1917

Born in Boston, Massachusetts , USA.

1940

Married novelist Jean Stafford.

1944

Poetry: Land of Unlikeness, 1st book.

1946

Poetry: Lord Weary's Castle, 2nd book.

1947

Pulitzer Prize for Lord Weary's Castle.

Appointed Consultant in Poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress, the position today known as the USA Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

1948

End of appointment as Consultant in Poetry to the U.S. Library of Congress, the position today known as the USA Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

End of marriage to Jean Stafford.

1949

Married writer Elizabeth Hardwick.

1950

Included in Mid-Century American Poets anthology, with Elizabeth Bishop, Randall Jarrell, Muriel Rukeyser, Karl Shapiro, Theodore Roethke, and John Ciardi.

1951

Poetry: The Mills of The Kavanaughs, 3rd book.

1959

Poetry: Life Studies, 4th book.

1961

Phaedra (translation).

Imitations.

1962

Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize for translations (or approximations) of poems by classical and modern European poets: Rilke, Montale, Baudelaire, Pasternak, Rimbaud, and others.

1964

Poetry: For the Union Dead, 5th book.

1965

The Old Glory.

1967

Poetry: Near the Ocean.

1969

The Voyage & other versions of poems of Baudelaire

Prometheus Bound.

Notebook (selections from two years of an experimental verse journal).

1970

Notebook (Revised and Expanded Edition).

Left his second wife, Elizabeth Hardwick, for Lady Caroline Blackwood, a British author.

1973

Poetry: For Lizzie and Harriet.

Poetry: History.

Poetry: The Dolphin.

1974

Pulitzer Prize for The Dolphin.

1976

Selected Poems.

1977

Revised Selected Poems.

Day by Day.

Died.

1978

The Oresteia of Aeschylus.

2003

Poetry: Collected Poems.

2005

One of six poets in The Wounded Surgeon by Adam Kirsch:

Buy 'The Wounded Surgeon' by Adam Kirsch

Links and Books.

Links and Books.

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