Read works of W. D. Snodgrass at 诗海 | |||
Snodgrass was born in Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania, in 1926, and was educated at Geneva College. His studies were interrupted when, during WWII, he was drafted into the Navy, and sent to the Pacific. After demobilization, Snodgrass resumed his studies, but transferred from Geneva College to the University of Iowa, eventually enrolling in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, which had been established in 1937, and was attracting as teachers some of the finest poetic talents of the day, among them John Berryman, Randall Jarrell and Robert Lowell.
Career
Snodgrass's first poems appeared in 1951, and throughout the 1950's he published in some of the most prestigious magazines: Botteghe Oscure, Partisan Review, The New Yorker, The Paris Review and The Hudson Review. However, in 1957, five sections from a sequence entitled 'Heart's Needle' were included in Hall, Pack and Simpson's anthology, New Poets of England and America, and these were to mark a turning-point. When Lowell had been shown early versions of these poems, in 1953, he had disliked them, but now he was full of admiration.
By the time Heart's Needle was published, in 1959, Snodgrass had already won the The Hudson Review Fellowship in Poetry and an Ingram Merrill Foundation Poetry Prize. However, his first book brought him more: a citation from the Poetry Society of America, a grant from the National Institute of Arts, and, most important of all, 1960's Pulitzer Prize in Poetry. It is often said that Heart's Needle inaugurated confessional poetry. Snodgrass disliked the term. Still, it should be pointed out that the genre he was reviving here seemed revolutionary to most of his contemporaries, reared as they had been on the anti-expressionistic principles of the New Critics. Snodgrass's confessional work was to have a profound effect on many of his contemporaries, amongst them, most importantly, Robert Lowell.
Snodgrass had a long and distinguished academic career, having taught at Cornell, Rochester, Wayne State, Syracuse, Old Dominion, and the University of Delaware. He retired from teaching in 1994, and devotes himself full-time to his writing. He lives with his fourth wife, writer Kathleen Snodgrass (née Brown). Snodgrass created a truly modern work with De/Compositions by taking 101 classic poems and reconstructing them to prove to readers exactly how important the tiniest elements in poems can be.
Poem Links
Here are some links that lead to poetry written by W.D. Snodgrass that are posted online.
"Heart's Needle" - Heart's Needle
"April Inventory" - April Inventory
"Sitting Outside" - Sitting Outside
Final Draft of "The Boy Made Out of Meat" - The Boy Made Out of Meat
"After Experience Taught Me..." - After Experience Taught Me
"A Locked House" - A Locked House
"Dr. Joseph Goebbels (22 April 1945)" - Dr. Joseph Goebbels (22 April 1945)
"Magda Goebbels (30 April 1945)" - Magda Goebbels (30 April 1945)
"Mementos, 1" - Mementos, 1
"Monet: “Les Nymphéas”" - Monet: Les Nymphèas
"Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring (1 April 1945)" - Reichsmarchall Herann Göring (1 April 1945)
"Song" - Song
"The Campus on the Hill" - The Campus on the Hill
"The Poet Ridiculed by Hysterical Academics" - The Poet Ridiculed by Hysterical Academics
"Vuillard: “The Mother and Sister of the Artist”" - Vuillard: The Mother and Sister of the Artist
Bibliography
Poetry
Heart's Needle (1959)
After Experience: Poems and Translations (1968)
Leaving the Motel (1968)
Remains (1970)
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)
6 Minnesinger Songs (Burning Deck, 1983)
D. D. Byrde Callying Jennie Wrenn (1984)
The Kinder Capers (1986)
A Locked House (1986)
_Select_ed 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)
Not for Specialists: New and _Select_ed Poems (2006)
Prose
In Radical Pursuit: Critical Essays and Lectures (1975)
De/Compositions (2001)
To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry (2002)
Anthology
Gallows Song (1967)
Six Troubadour Songs (1977)
Traditional Hungarian Songs (1978)
Six Minnesinger Songs (1983)
The Four Seasons (1984)
Five Romanian Ballads, Cartea Romaneasca (1993)
_Select_ed Translations (1998)
Drama
The Führer Bunker (1981)
References
A note on W D Snodgrass
W. D. Snodgrass (Twayne's United States authors series; TUSAS 316) by Paul. Gaston
The Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass: Everything Human (Under Discussion) by Stephen Haven (Editor)
"No music, no poem": Interviews with W.R. Moses & W.D. Snodgrass (Juniper book) by Roy Scheele
W.D. Snodgrass,: A bibliography by William White
Tuned and Under Tension: The Recent Poetry of W.D. Snodgrass by Philip Raisor (Editor)
W.D. Snodgrass and The Fuhrer bunker: An interview by Paul L Gaston
An examination of a book entitled "Discourses on the apostolical succession, by W.D. Snodgrass, D.D by William Johnson
American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies: Supplement Vi, Don Delillo to W. D. Snodgrass (Supplement Vi) (American Writers Supplements) by Jay Parini (Editor)
Everything Human: On the Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass by Richard Howard (Other Contributor)