[New-Poetry] Re: laureate

[David Bircumshaw]

Sometime in the 1960s the CIA also sent on him on a reading tour to 
Latin America to counter the influence of Neruda. I know that seems 
weird, but, there again, so's our Poet Laureate's official salary.

I am told, though, that Andrew Motion wears the most marvellous silk 
ties. This, admiringly, by a pair of Midlands literary editors.

> It seems that James is right, from Wikipedia the incredible ancestors 
> of his mother, and his brief bio:
>  
>
> Robert Lowell was born in Boston, Massachusetts 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston%2C_Massachusetts> to a Boston 
> Brahmin <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin> family that 
> included the poets Amy Lowell 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Lowell> and James Russell Lowell 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Russell_Lowell>. His mother, 
> Charlotte Winslow, was a direct descendant of William Samuel Johnson 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Samuel_Johnson>, a signer of the 
> United States Constitution 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution>, Jonathan 
> Edwards 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Edwards_%28theologian%29>, the 
> famed philosopher, Anne Hutchinson 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_Hutchinson>, the Puritan preacher 
> and healer, Robert Livingston the Elder 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Livingston_the_Elder>, Thomas 
> Dudley <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dudley>, the second 
> governor of Massachusetts, and /Mayflower 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower>/ passengers James Chilton 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Chilton> and his daughter Mary 
> Chilton <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Chilton>. He was at St. 
> Mark's School, a prominent prep-school in Southborough, Mass, before 
> attending Harvard College 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_College> for two years and 
> transferring to Kenyon College 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenyon_College> in Gambier, Ohio, to 
> study under John Crowe Ransom 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Crowe_Ransom>.^[1] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowell#cite_note-harvard-0> He 
> converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism,^[2] 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowell#cite_note-poets-1> which 
> influenced his first two books, /Land of Unlikeness/ (1944 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1944_in_poetry>) and the Pulitzer Prize 
> winning /Lord Weary's Castle/ (1946 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_in_poetry>). In 1950 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_in_poetry>, Lowell was included in 
> the influential anthology /Mid-Century American Poets/ as one of the 
> key literary figures of his generation. Among his contemporaries who 
> also appeared in that book were Muriel Rukeyser 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muriel_Rukeyser>, Karl Shapiro 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Shapiro>, Elizabeth Bishop 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bishop>, Theodore Roethke 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Roethke>, Randall Jarrell 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Jarrell>, and John Ciardi 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Ciardi>, all poets who came into 
> prominence in the 1940s.
>
> Lowell was a conscientious objector 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objector> during World War 
> II <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II> and served several 
> months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Institution%2C_Danbury>. 
> During the 1960s he was active in the civil rights movement and 
> opposed the US involvement in Vietnam. His participation in the 
> October 1967 peace march in Washington, DC 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington%2C_DC>, and his subsequent 
> arrest are described in the early sections of Norman Mailer 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Mailer>'s /The Armies of the Night/.
>
> Lowell suffered with alcoholism 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholism> and manic depression 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_depression> and was hospitalized 
> many times throughout his life. He was married to novelist Jean 
> Stafford <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Stafford> from 1940 to 
> 1948. In 1949 he married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hardwick>. In 1970 he left 
> Elizabeth Hardwick for the British author Lady Caroline Blackwood 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caroline_Blackwood>. He spent many of 
> his last years in England. Lowell died in 1977, having suffered a 
> heart attack in a cab in New York City on his way to see Elizabeth 
> Hardwick <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Hardwick>. He is 
> buried in Stark Cemetery, Dunbarton, New Hampshire 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbarton%2C_New_Hampshire>.
>
> Lowell's collected poems were published in 2003 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_in_poetry> and his letters in 2005 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_in_poetry>, leading to a renewed 
> interest in his work.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> *From:* jforjames at aol.com <mailto:jforjames at aol.com>
> *To:* new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu <mailto:new-poetry at wiz.cath.vt.edu>
> *Sent:* Monday, May 05, 2008 8:56 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [New-Poetry] Re: laureate
>
>
>     even Lowell during Vietnam--he served one stint, in 1947-8).  
>
>
> --
> I didn't realize this. Wasn't Lowell a CO during WWII? That would've 
> make him a controversial pick on the heels of the war years.
> Finnegan
>  

-- 

David Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.bircumshaw/
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
Leicester Poetry Society: http://www.poetryleicester.co.uk

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