Robert Pinsky

Infobox Writer
name = Robert Pinsky

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imagesize = 170px
caption = Robert Pinsky (b. 1940), at a 2005 event.
birthdate = Birth date and age|1940|10|20|df=y.
birthplace = Long Branch, New Jersey United States
occupation = poet, literary critic, editor, academic
nationality = American
period = 1968-present
genre = poetry, literary criticism.
notableworks = "Landor's Poetry" (1968)
influences = Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Matthew Arnold
T. S. Eliot
W. H. Auden
influenced =

Robert Pinsky (born October 20 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 – 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations, including a collection of poems by Czeslaw Milosz and Dante Alighieri. He teaches at Boston University [http://english.duke.edu/resources/archive.php] .

Biography

Early on, Pinsky was inspired by the flow and tension of jazz and the excitement that it made him feel. He said it was an incredible experience that he has tried to reproduce in his poetry. The musicality of poetry was and is extremely important to his work. [ [http://project1.caryacademy.org/echoes/poet_Robert_Pinsky/defaultrobert%20pinsky.htm New Page 1 ] ] .

He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1974, and in 1997 was named the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He now lives in Newton Corner, Massachusetts, and teaches in the graduate writing program at Boston University.

As Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky founded the Favorite Poem Project, in which thousands of Americans of varying backgrounds, all ages, and from every state share their favorite poems. Pinsky believed that, contrary to stereotype, poetry has a strong presence in the American culture. The project sought to document that presence, giving voice to the American audience for poetry. Fact|date=November 2007

Pinsky is also the author of the interactive fiction game "Mindwheel" (1984) developed by Synapse Industries and released by Broderbund. [ [http://www.electronicbookreview.com/thread/firstperson/fictive Interactive Fiction ] ]

Pinsky guest-starred in a 2002 episode of the animated sitcom, "The Simpsons" entitled Little Girl in the Big Ten, and appeared on "The Colbert Report" in April, 2007 as the judge of a "Meta-Free-Phor-All" between Stephen Colbert and Sean Penn.

Literary Praise

Pinsky is often praised for "his grasp of traditional metrical forms and his ability to evoke timeless meaning within the strictures of contemporary idioms." Critics applaud, "his ability to imbue simple images—a Brownie troop square dance, cold weather, the music of Fats Waller—with underlying meaning to create order out of the accidental events people encounter in their lives." Commentators admire Pinsky's, "ambitiousness, his juxtaposition of the personal with the universal, the present with the past, the simple with the complex, and it has been noted that his intellectual style presents challenges to readers, obliging them to unravel the complexity behind the clarity of language and imagery."Fact|date=November 2007

About Robert Pinsky's first book of poems Robert Lowell wrote, "It is refreshing to find a poet who is intellectually interesting and technically first-rate. Robert Pinsky belongs to that rarest category of talent, a poet-critic."

In the Times Literary Supplement, William Pritchard Fact|date=November 2007 called "Sadness and Happiness", "the best work by any younger poet within recent memory."

Louis Martz called Pinsky Fact|date=November 2007"the most exhilarating new poet that I have read since A. R. Ammons entered upon the scene. In his peculiar and original combination of abstract utterance and vivid image Pinsky points the way toward the future of poetry."

"The Inferno of Dante" has been celebrated by Stephen Greenblatt Fact|date=November 2007 as, "the premier modern text for English-language readers to experience Dante's power."

“In his poems Pinsky talks, with democratic warmth and intimacy, to the common things of this world. His extraordinary poems remind us that he has always embodied the very ideal he proposes for what a poet can do,” Lloyd Schwarz, The Boston Phoenix Fact|date=November 2007

"Robert Pinsky's poetry is noted for its combination of vivid imagery and clear, discursive language that explores such themes as truth, the history of nations and individuals, and the transcendent aspects of simple acts. Pinsky strives to create an organized view of the world, often confronting and trying to explain the past to bring order to the present. Recurring subjects in his work include the Holocaust, religion, and childhood. Pinsky's moral tone and mastery of poetic meter often are compared to eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English poets, and the insights conveyed in his analytical works on poetry have led critics to place him in the tradition of other poet-critics such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Matthew Arnold, T. S. Eliot, and W. H. Auden." Fact|date=November 2007

Published works

Poetry

*"Sadness and Happiness" (1975)
*"An Explanation of America" (1980)
*"History of My Heart" (1984)
*"Dying" (1984)
*"The Want Bone" (1990)
*"The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996" (1996)
*"Jersey Rain" (2000)
*"Samurai Song" (2001)
*"Gulf Music: Poems" (2007)

Prose

*"The Situation of Poetry" (1977)
*"Poetry and the World" (1988)
*"The Sounds of Poetry" (1998)
*"Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry" (2002)
*"The Life of David" (2006)

As Translator

*"The Separate Notebooks by Czeslaw Milosz", with Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass (1984)
*"The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation" (1995)

As Editor

*"Landor's Poetry" (1968)
*"Handbook of Heartbreak" (1998)
*"Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology", with Maggie Dietz (1999)
*"Poems to Read" (2002)
*"An Invitation to Poetry" (2004)

Honors and awards

* Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (1997-2000)
* National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (1974)
* Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing at Stanford University
* Saxifrage Prize (1980) for "An Explanation of America"
* William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America
* Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism (1988) for "Poetry and the World"
* Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry (1996) for "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems, 1966-1996"
* Ambassador Book Award in Poetry of the English Speaking Union
* Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize (1997) for "The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996"
* Los Angeles Times Book Award (1994) for "The Inferno of Dante"
* Book-of-the-Month Editor's Choice (1994) for "The Inferno of Dante"
* Academy of American Poets' Translation Award (1994) for "The Inferno of Dante"

Notes and references

Notes and citations

Books and printed materials

* The Art of Poetry LXXVI: Robert Pinsky" "The Paris Review" No. 144 (1997), 180-213 (interview)

Online Resources

* [http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news/releases/display.php?id=388 Boston University Press Release]
* [http://www.cortlandreview.com/pinsky.htm Cortland Review Interview with Robert Pinsky]
* [http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/pinsky/pinsky.htm Modern American Poetry on Robert Pinsky]
* [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/200 The Academy of American Poets on Robert Pinsky]

External links

* [http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/430/thrilling_difficulty/ Interview with Robert Pinsky for Guernica Magazine]
* [http://wiredforbooks.org/robertpinsky/ Robert Pinsky reads his poetry at Wired for Books - RealAudio by Don Swaim]
* [http://www.favoritepoem.org/ The Favorite Poem Project Site]
* [http://www.ibiblio.org/ipa/pinsky.php/ IPA: Robert Pinsky reads a selection of his poetry]
* [http://thoughtcast.org/casts/poet-robert-pinsky-takes-on-king-david Poet Robert Pinsky Takes on King David] in a public radio interview on ThoughtCast!
* [http://onegoodmove.org/1gm/1gmarchive/2007/04/sean_penn_tops.html Robert Pinsky is the special guest judge] for the Sean Penn vs. Stephen Colbert's "Meta-Free-Phor-All: Shall I Nail Thee to a Summer's Day?" Metaphor-Off

Persondata
NAME=Robert Pinsky
ALTERNATIVE NAMES=none
SHORT DESCRIPTION=American poet, editor, literary critic, academic.
DATE OF BIRTH=20 October 1940
PLACE OF BIRTH=Long Branch, New Jersey (United States)
DATE OF DEATH=Still alive
PLACE OF DEATH=Still alive.