Wikipedia

John Hollander

John Hollander(October 28, 1929 – August 17, 2013) was an American poet and literary critic.[1]At the time of his death, he wasSterling ProfessorEmeritus of English atYale University,having previously taught atConnecticut College,Hunter College,and the Graduate Center,CUNY.

John Hollander
Born(1929-10-28)October 28, 1929
Manhattan
DiedAugust 17, 2013(2013-08-17)(aged 83)
Branford, Connecticut
Alma materColumbia University(BA,MA)
Indiana University(PhD)
GenrePoetry
SpouseAnne Loesser;
Natalie Charkow
ChildrenMartha Hollander,Elizabeth Hollander

Life

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John Hollander was born inManhattanto Muriel (Kornfeld) and Franklin Hollander,[2]Jewish immigrant parents. He was the elder brother of Michael Hollander (1934–2015), a distinguished professor of architecture at Pratt Institute. He attended theBronx High School of Science[3]and thenColumbia College of Columbia University,where he studied underMark Van DorenandLionel Trillingand overlapped withAllen Ginsberg(Hollander's poetic mentor),[4]Jason Epstein,Richard Howard,Robert Gottlieb,Roone Arledge,Max Frankel,Louis SimpsonandSteven Marcus.At Columbia, he joined theBoar's Head Society.[5]After graduating, he supported himself for a while by writing liner notes for classical music albums before returning to obtain an MA in literature and then a PhD fromIndiana University.[6]

Hollander resided inWoodbridge, Connecticut,where he served as a judge for several high-school recitation contests. He said he enjoyed working with students on their poetry and teaching it. With his ex-wife,Anne Loesser(daughter of pianistArthur Loesser;[7]married 1953–77), he was the father of writerMartha Hollanderand uncle of the songwriterSam Hollander.He married Natalie Charkow in 1981.

Hollander died atBranford, Connecticut,on August 17, 2013, at the age of 83.[8]

Poetic career

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Hollander stressed the importance of hearing poems out loud: "A good poem satisfies the ear. It creates a story or picture that grabs you, informs you and entertains you".[9]The poet needs to be aware of the "sound of sense; the music of speech".[10]To Hollander, verse was a kind of music in words, and he spoke eloquently about their connection with the human voice.[4]

Hollander was also known for his translations fromYiddish. He usually wrote his poems on a computer, but if inspiration struck him, he offered that, "I've been known to start poems on napkins and scraps of paper, too."[9]

Hollander was considered to have technical poetic powers without equal,[11]as exampled by his "Powers of Thirteen" poem, an extended sequence of 169 (13 × 13) unrhymed 13-linestanzaswith 13 syllables in each line.[12]These constraints liberated rather than inhibited Hollander's imagination, giving a fusion ofmetaphorsthat enabled Hollander to conceive this work as "a perpetual calendar".[13]Hollander also composed poems as "graphematic"emblems(Type of Shapes,1969) and epistolary poems (exampled inReflections on Espionage,1976),[14]and, as a critic (inVision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form,1975), offered telling insights into the relationship between words and music and sound in poetry, and in metrical experimentation,[15]and 'the lack of a theory of graphicprosody'.[16]

Hollander influenced poets Todd LaRoche andKarl Kirchwey,who both studied under Hollander atYale.Hollander taught Kirchwey that it was possible to build a life around the task of writing poetry.[17]Kirchwey recalled Hollander's passion:[17] 'Since he is a poet himself... he conveyed a passion for that knowledge as a source of current inspiration.'

Hollander also served in the following positions, among others: member of the board,Wesleyan University Press(1959–62); editorial assistant for poetry,Partisan Review(1959–65); and contributing editor ofHarper's Magazine(1969–71).[18]His other role was as a poetry critic.[19]

Hollander's poetry has been set to music byMilton Babbitt,Elliott Carter,and others;[20]in 2007 he collaborated with theEagles,allowing them use of his poem "An Old Fashioned Song" to create the song "No More Walks in the Wood".[21]

Awards and honors

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Works

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  • A Crackling of Thorns(1958) poems
  • The Untuning of the Sky(1961)
  • The Wind and the Rain(1961) editor withHarold Bloom
  • Movie-Going(1962) poems
  • Philomel(1964) "cantata text" for the composition of the same name by American composerMilton Babbitt
  • Visions from the Ramble(1965) poems
  • The Quest of the Gole(1966)
  • Jiggery-Pokery: A Compendium of Double Dactyls(1967) withAnthony Hecht
  • Types of Shape(1969, 1991) poems
  • Images of Voice(1970) criticism
  • The Night Mirror(1971) poems
  • Town and Country Matters(1972) poems
  • The Oxford Anthology of English Literature(1973), co-editor
  • The Head of the Bed(1974) poems, with commentary byHarold Bloom
  • Tales Told of the Fathers(1975) poems
  • Vision and Resonance(1975) criticism
  • Reflections on Espionage(1976) poems
  • Spectral Emanations: New and Selected Poems(1978)
  • Blue Wine(1979) poems
  • The Figure of Echo(1981) criticism
  • Rhyme's Reason: A Guide to English Verse(1981, 1989, 2001, 2014) manual ofprosody
  • Powers of Thirteen(1983) poems
  • In Time and Place(1986) poems
  • Harp Lake(1988) poems
  • Melodious Guile: Fictive Pattern in Poetic Language(1988)
  • Some Fugitives Take Cover(1988) poems
  • The Essential Rossetti(1990), editor
  • Tesserae and Other Poems(1993)
  • Selected Poetry(1993)
  • American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century(1993), editor
  • Animal Poems(1994) poems
  • The Gazer's Spirit: Poems Speaking to Silent Works of Art(1995) criticism
  • Committed to Memory: 100 Best Poems to Memorize(1996), editor
  • The Work of Poetry(1997) criticism
  • The Poetry of Everyday Life(1998) criticism
  • Figurehead and Other Poems(1999) poems
  • Sonnets. From Dante to the present(2001), Everyman's library pocket poets.
  • Picture Window(2003)
  • American Wits: An Anthology of Light Verse(2003), editor
  • Poems Bewitched and Haunted(2005), editor
  • A Draft of Light(2008), poems
  • The Substance of Shadow: a Darkening Trope in Poetic History(2016), lectures

References

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  1. ^"John Hollander".NNDb.RetrievedMarch 6,2016.
  2. ^"John Hollander Biography".Enotes.RetrievedMarch 6,2016.
  3. ^J. D. McClatchy,"John Hollander, The Art of Poetry No. 35",Paris Review(Fall 1984).
  4. ^abYezzi, David,The New Criterion,vol. 32, October 2013.
  5. ^ "History".Columbia Review. May 23, 2014.RetrievedMarch 5,2016.
  6. ^Keillor, Garrison.Writer's AlmanacArchivedNovember 7, 2006, at theWayback Machine.October 28, 2006.
  7. ^Benjamin Ivry (February 3, 2009)."Praising Sacred Places: Richard Howard's Jewish Roots - Culture –".Forward.RetrievedMarch 6,2016.
  8. ^Grimes, William (August 18, 2013)."John Hollander, Poet at Ease With Intellectualism and Wit, Dies at 83".The New York Times.
  9. ^abcBoynton, Cynthia Wolfe, "Venerable Poet's Words To a Pop Music Beat",The New York Times,Connecticut and the Region section, February 10, 2008, p. 6.
  10. ^Essay: "The Poem in the Ear",Vision and Resonance: Two senses of Poetic Form(1975).
  11. ^Howard Richard,Alone in America: Essays on the art of poetry in U.S.since 1950,1969.
  12. ^Breslin, Paul, Review ofPowers of Thirteen,Poetry,vol. 145, no. 3, December 1984.
  13. ^Lehman, David - article inNewsweek,January 23, 1984.
  14. ^Hollander, John - interview by email with Paul Devlin March/April 2003.
  15. ^Attridge, Dennis, Review ofVision and Resonance: Two senses of Poetic Form,MLR,vol. 72, no. 3, July 1973.
  16. ^Rothman, David, "Verse, Prose speech, Counting and the Problem of Graphic Order",Versification,vol. 1, no. 1, March 21, 1997.
  17. ^abJohn swansburg (April 29, 2001)."At Yale, Lessons in Writing and in Life".The New York Times.RetrievedOctober 15,2010.Karl Kirchwey, who graduated from Yale in 1979, recently became the director of creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, after having run the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y for over a decade. He remembers his first two years at Yale as unfocused and unproductive.
  18. ^"John Hollander".Archived fromthe originalon June 29, 2011.RetrievedMarch 3,2011.
  19. ^Hollander, John, Review "Stanley Cavell and the claim of Reason",Critical Inquiry,vol. 6, no. 4, U of C P, Summer 1980.
  20. ^Readings in Contemporary Poetry,December 1995
  21. ^Sam Hollander,"The Lives they Lived",New York Times Magazine,December 21, 2013.
  22. ^STATE OF CONNECTICUT, Sites º Seals º SymbolsArchivedMarch 14, 2008, at theWayback Machine;Connecticut State Register & Manual;retrieved on January 4, 2007
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