Mona Van Duyn: Difference between revisions
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{{Short description|American poet (1921–2004)}} |
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| caption = Van Duyn in 1992 or 1993 |
| caption = Van Duyn in 1992 or 1993 |
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| birth_date = {{Birth date|1921|05|09}} |
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| birth_place = [[Waterloo, Iowa]], US |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|2004|12|02|1921|05|09}} |
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| birth_place = [[Waterloo, Iowa]] |
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| death_date = {{Death date and age|2004|12|02|1921|05|09}} |
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| education = [[University of Northern Iowa]] ([[Bachelor of Arts|BA]])<br>[[University of Iowa]] ([[Master of Arts|MA]]) |
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| employer = [[University of Louisville]] <br> [[Washington University in St. Louis]] |
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| title = [[United States Poet Laureate]] |
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| alma_mater = [[Iowa State Teachers College]] <br> [[State University of Iowa]]<br>[[University of Louisville]] |
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| title = [[United States Poet Laureate]]<!-- Formal/awarded/job title. The parameter |office=may be used as an alternative when the label is better rendered as "Office" (e.g. public office or appointments) --> |
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| term = 1992-1993 |
| term = 1992-1993 |
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| awards = National Book Award (1971) <br> Bollingen Prize (1971) <br> Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989) <br> Pulitzer Prize (1991) |
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⚫ | '''Mona Jane Van Duyn''' (May 9, 1921 – December 2, 2004) was an American poet. She was appointed [[Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress|United States Poet Laureate]] in 1992.<ref>{{cite web | title=Poet Laureate Timeline: 1991-2000 | url=https://www.loc.gov/poetry/laureate-1991-2000.html | publisher=Library of Congress | year=2009 | access-date=2009-01-01}} (Six women poets preceded her as Consultants in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Also see [[United States Poet Laureate]].)</ref> |
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⚫ | '''Mona Jane Van Duyn''' (May 9, 1921 – December 2, 2004) was an American |
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==Biography== |
==Biography== |
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===Early years=== |
===Early years=== |
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Van Duyn was born May 9, 1921 in [[Waterloo, Iowa]].<ref name=":0">"Van Duyn, Mona (1921–2004)." ''[[Dictionary of Women Worldwide|Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages]]'', edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 2, Yorkin Publications, 2007, p. 1916. ''Gale eBooks''. Accessed 6 Sept. 2021.</ref> She grew up in the small town of [[Eldora, Iowa|Eldora]] (pop. 3,200) where she read voraciously in the town library and wrote poems secretly in notebooks from her grade school years to her high school years. Van Duyn earned a B.A. from [[Iowa State Teachers College]] in 1942, and an M.A. from the [[State University of Iowa]] in 1943, the year she married Jarvis Thurston.<ref name=":0" /> She and Thurston studied in the Ph.D. program at Iowa. In 1946 she was hired as an instructor at the [[University of Louisville]] when her husband became an assistant professor there. Together they began ''Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature and the Arts'' in 1947, which she edited for the next twenty years.<ref name=":0" /> They shifted that journal to [[Washington University in St. Louis]] when they moved there in 1950.<ref name=":0" /> |
Van Duyn was born May 9, 1921, in [[Waterloo, Iowa]].<ref name=":0">"Van Duyn, Mona (1921–2004)." ''[[Dictionary of Women Worldwide|Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages]]'', edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 2, Yorkin Publications, 2007, p. 1916. ''Gale eBooks''. Accessed 6 Sept. 2021.</ref> She grew up in the small town of [[Eldora, Iowa|Eldora]] (pop. 3,200) where she read voraciously in the town library and wrote poems secretly in notebooks from her grade school years to her high school years. Van Duyn earned a B.A. from [[Iowa State Teachers College]] in 1942, and an M.A. from the [[State University of Iowa]] in 1943, the year she married Jarvis Thurston.<ref name=":0" /> She and Thurston studied in the Ph.D. program at Iowa. In 1946 she was hired as an instructor at the [[University of Louisville]] when her husband became an assistant professor there. Together they began ''Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature and the Arts'' in 1947, which she edited for the next twenty years.<ref name=":0" /> They shifted that journal to [[Washington University in St. Louis]] when they moved there in 1950.<ref name=":0" /> |
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===Academic career=== |
===Academic career=== |
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In St. Louis, Van Duyn taught English from 1950 to 1967 at Washington University.<ref name=":0" /> Thurston became chair of the Washington University Department of English, and Van Duyn and Thurston drew to St. Louis and presided over what would become a unique literary circle of creative writers and critics. (It |
In St. Louis, Van Duyn taught English from 1950 to 1967 at Washington University.<ref name=":0" /> Thurston became chair of the Washington University Department of English, and Van Duyn and Thurston drew to St. Louis and presided over what would become a unique literary circle of creative writers and critics. (It included poet [[Howard Nemerov]], novelist and critic [[William Gass]], novelist [[Stanley Elkin]], poets [[Donald Finkel]] and John Morris, critic [[Richard Stang]], authors Wayne Fields and [[Naomi Lebowitz]], and others.) <ref>Brockhoff, Dorothy. “Size and Quality of WU Writers' Colony May Rank First Among Nation's Campuses.” Washington University Record, November 21, 1974, pp. 3-4. Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives. https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/record/12. Also see Washington University in St. Louis, The Source Newsroom. Georges, Cynthia, “Obituary: Jarvis A. Thurston, 93; Professor of English.” February 15, 2008. https://source.wustl.edu/2008/02/obituary-jarvis-a-thurston-93-professor-of-english/</ref> Continuing to edit ''Perspective'' until it ceased publication in 1975, they are recognized for their role in fostering literary talent nationwide and for publishing early works by [[Anthony Hecht]], [[W. S. Merwin]], [[Douglas Woolf]], and many others. {{Citation needed|date=September 2021}} |
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Van Duyn was a friend of poet [[James Merrill]] and instrumental in securing his papers for the Washington University Special Collections in the mid |
Van Duyn was a friend of poet [[James Merrill]] and instrumental in securing his papers for the Washington University Special Collections in the mid-1960s. She was a lecturer in the University College of [[Washington University in St. Louis]] until her retirement in 1990. In 1983, a year after she had published her fifth book of poems, she was named Adjunct Professor in the English Department and became the "Visiting Hurst Professor" in 1987, the year she was invited to be a member of the [[National Institute of Arts and Letters]].<ref name="Famous Iowans: Van Duyn, Mona">{{cite web|url= http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/99999999/FAMOUSIOWANS/603120338/Van-Duyn-Mona|title= Famous Iowans: Van Duyn, Mona|work= DesMoinesRegister.com|publisher= The Des Moines Register|access-date= May 16, 2010|url-status= dead|archive-url= https://archive.today/20120730220456/http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/99999999/FAMOUSIOWANS/603120338/Van-Duyn-Mona|archive-date= July 30, 2012}}</ref> |
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===Career as a poet=== |
===Career as a poet=== |
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''To See, To Take'' (1970) was a collection of poems that gathered together three previous books and some uncollected work and won the [[National Book Award for Poetry]].<ref name=nba1971/> In 1981 she became a fellow in the [[Academy of American Poets]] and then, in 1985, one of the twelve Chancellors who serve for life.<ref name=":0" /> Collected poems, ''If It Be Not I'' (1992) included four volumes that had appeared since her first collected poems. It was published simultaneously with a new collection of poetry, ''Firefall''. |
''To See, To Take'' (1970) was a collection of poems that gathered together three previous books and some uncollected work and won the [[National Book Award for Poetry]].<ref name=nba1971/> In 1981 she became a fellow in the [[Academy of American Poets]] and then, in 1985, one of the twelve Chancellors who serve for life.<ref name=":0" /> Collected poems, ''If It Be Not I'' (1992) included four volumes that had appeared since her first collected poems. It was published simultaneously with a new collection of poetry, ''Firefall''. |
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In 1993 she was inducted into the [[St. Louis Walk of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement|title=St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees|last=St. Louis Walk of Fame|publisher=stlouiswalkoffame.org|access-date=25 April 2013|archive-url=https:// |
In 1993, she was inducted into the [[St. Louis Walk of Fame]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement|title=St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees|last=St. Louis Walk of Fame|publisher=stlouiswalkoffame.org|access-date=25 April 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121031162946/http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/?view=achievement|archive-date=31 October 2012|url-status=dead}}</ref> She was elected a Fellow of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] in 1996.<ref name=AAAS>{{cite web|title=Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter V|url=http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterV.pdf|publisher=American Academy of Arts and Sciences|access-date=July 29, 2014}}</ref> |
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She died of [[bone cancer]] at her home in [[University City, Missouri]], on December 2, 2004, aged 83.<ref name="Famous Iowans: Van Duyn, Mona"/> |
She died of [[bone cancer]] at her home in [[University City, Missouri]], on December 2, 2004, aged 83.<ref name="Famous Iowans: Van Duyn, Mona"/> |
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[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1971 "National Book Awards – 1971"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved 2012-04-07. |
[https://www.nationalbook.org/awards-prizes/national-book-awards-1971 "National Book Awards – 1971"]. [[National Book Foundation]]. Retrieved 2012-04-07. |
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<br/>(With acceptance speech by Van Duyn and essay by Dilruba Ahmed from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)</ref> |
<br/>(With acceptance speech by Van Duyn and essay by Dilruba Ahmed from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.)</ref> |
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*''Bedtime Stories'' |
*''Bedtime Stories'' (Ceres Press), 1972. |
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*''Merciful Disguises:: Poems Published and Unpublished'' (Atheneum), 1973. |
*''Merciful Disguises:: Poems Published and Unpublished'' (Atheneum), 1973. |
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*''Letters From a Father, and Other Poems'' (Atheneum), 1982. |
*''Letters From a Father, and Other Poems'' (Atheneum), 1982. |
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*''[[Near Changes]]'' (Knopf), 1990 —winner of the 1991 [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]]<ref name=pulitzer>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Poetry "Poetry"]. ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-07.</ref> |
*''[[Near Changes]]'' (Knopf), 1990 —winner of the 1991 [[Pulitzer Prize for Poetry]]<ref name=pulitzer>[http://www.pulitzer.org/bycat/Poetry "Poetry"]. ''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-07.</ref> |
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*''[[Firefall (poetry)|Firefall]]'' (Knopf), 1992. |
*''[[Firefall (poetry)|Firefall]]'' (Knopf), 1992. |
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*''If It Be Not I: Collected Poems, |
*''If It Be Not I: Collected Poems, 1959–1982'' (Knopf), 1994. |
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*''Selected Poems'' (Knopf), 2003. |
*''Selected Poems'' (Knopf), 2003. |
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==External links== |
==External links== |
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130105111422/http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/vanduyn.html Mona Van Duyn Papers] at Washington University |
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20130105111422/http://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/manuscripts/vanduyn.html Mona Van Duyn Papers] at Washington University in St. Louis — with brief biography |
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*[http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/van%20duyn/van_duyn.htm Mona Van Duyn] pages at Modern American Poetry, Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
*[http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/van%20duyn/van_duyn.htm Mona Van Duyn] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090110103207/http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/van%20duyn/van_duyn.htm |date=2009-01-10 }} pages at Modern American Poetry, Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign |
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*[http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/169 Mona Van Duyn] at the [[Academy of American Poets]] |
*[http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/169 Mona Van Duyn] at the [[Academy of American Poets]] |
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*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060317234551/http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/mona-duyn.html Mona Van Duyn] at the [[St. Louis Walk of Fame]] |
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20060317234551/http://www.stlouiswalkoffame.org/inductees/mona-duyn.html Mona Van Duyn] at the [[St. Louis Walk of Fame]] |
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[[Category:1921 births]] |
[[Category:1921 births]] |
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[[Category:2004 deaths]] |
[[Category:2004 deaths]] |
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[[Category:Deaths from bone cancer]] |
[[Category:Deaths from bone cancer in the United States]] |
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[[Category:Bollingen Prize recipients]] |
[[Category:Bollingen Prize recipients]] |
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[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] |
[[Category:Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] |
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[[Category:20th-century American poets]] |
[[Category:20th-century American poets]] |
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[[Category:20th-century American women writers]] |
[[Category:20th-century American women writers]] |
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[[Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters]] |
Revision as of 19:28, 11 April 2024
Mona Van Duyn | |
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![]() Van Duyn in 1992 or 1993 | |
Born | Waterloo, Iowa, US | May 9, 1921
Died | December 2, 2004 | (aged 83)
Education | University of Northern Iowa (BA) University of Iowa (MA) |
Occupation(s) | Poet Professor |
Employer(s) | University of Louisville Washington University in St. Louis |
Title | United States Poet Laureate |
Term | 1992-1993 |
Awards | National Book Award (1971) Bollingen Prize (1971) Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989) Pulitzer Prize (1991) |
Mona Jane Van Duyn (May 9, 1921 – December 2, 2004) was an American poet. She was appointed United States Poet Laureate in 1992.[1]
Biography
Early years
Van Duyn was born May 9, 1921, in Waterloo, Iowa.[2] She grew up in the small town of Eldora (pop. 3,200) where she read voraciously in the town library and wrote poems secretly in notebooks from her grade school years to her high school years. Van Duyn earned a B.A. from Iowa State Teachers College in 1942, and an M.A. from the State University of Iowa in 1943, the year she married Jarvis Thurston.[2] She and Thurston studied in the Ph.D. program at Iowa. In 1946 she was hired as an instructor at the University of Louisville when her husband became an assistant professor there. Together they began Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature and the Arts in 1947, which she edited for the next twenty years.[2] They shifted that journal to Washington University in St. Louis when they moved there in 1950.[2]
Academic career
In St. Louis, Van Duyn taught English from 1950 to 1967 at Washington University.[2] Thurston became chair of the Washington University Department of English, and Van Duyn and Thurston drew to St. Louis and presided over what would become a unique literary circle of creative writers and critics. (It included poet Howard Nemerov, novelist and critic William Gass, novelist Stanley Elkin, poets Donald Finkel and John Morris, critic Richard Stang, authors Wayne Fields and Naomi Lebowitz, and others.) [3] Continuing to edit Perspective until it ceased publication in 1975, they are recognized for their role in fostering literary talent nationwide and for publishing early works by Anthony Hecht, W. S. Merwin, Douglas Woolf, and many others. [citation needed] Van Duyn was a friend of poet James Merrill and instrumental in securing his papers for the Washington University Special Collections in the mid-1960s. She was a lecturer in the University College of Washington University in St. Louis until her retirement in 1990. In 1983, a year after she had published her fifth book of poems, she was named Adjunct Professor in the English Department and became the "Visiting Hurst Professor" in 1987, the year she was invited to be a member of the National Institute of Arts and Letters.[4]
Career as a poet
Van Duyn won every major U.S. prize for poetry, including the National Book Award (1971) for To See, To Take,[5] the Bollingen Prize (1971), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989), and the Pulitzer Prize (1991) for Near Changes.[6] She was the U.S. Poet Laureate between 1992 and 1993.[2] Despite her accolades, her career fluctuated between praise and obscurity. Her views of love and marriage ranged from the scathing to the optimistic. In "What I Want to Say", she wrote of love:
- It is the absolute narrowing of possibilities
- and everyone, down to the last man
- dreads it
But in "Late Loving", she wrote:
- Love is finding the familiar dear
To See, To Take (1970) was a collection of poems that gathered together three previous books and some uncollected work and won the National Book Award for Poetry.[5] In 1981 she became a fellow in the Academy of American Poets and then, in 1985, one of the twelve Chancellors who serve for life.[2] Collected poems, If It Be Not I (1992) included four volumes that had appeared since her first collected poems. It was published simultaneously with a new collection of poetry, Firefall.
In 1993, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame.[7] She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1996.[8] She died of bone cancer at her home in University City, Missouri, on December 2, 2004, aged 83.[4]
Works
- Valentines to the Wide World (The Cummington Press), 1959.
- A Time of Bees (University of North Carolina Press), 1964.
- To See, To Take: Poems (Atheneum), 1970 —winner of the 1971 National Book Award for Poetry[5]
- Bedtime Stories (Ceres Press), 1972.
- Merciful Disguises:: Poems Published and Unpublished (Atheneum), 1973.
- Letters From a Father, and Other Poems (Atheneum), 1982.
- Near Changes (Knopf), 1990 —winner of the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry[6]
- Firefall (Knopf), 1992.
- If It Be Not I: Collected Poems, 1959–1982 (Knopf), 1994.
- Selected Poems (Knopf), 2003.
References
- ^ "Poet Laureate Timeline: 1991-2000". Library of Congress. 2009. Retrieved 2009-01-01. (Six women poets preceded her as Consultants in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Also see United States Poet Laureate.)
- ^ a b c d e f g "Van Duyn, Mona (1921–2004)." Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages, edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 2, Yorkin Publications, 2007, p. 1916. Gale eBooks. Accessed 6 Sept. 2021.
- ^ Brockhoff, Dorothy. “Size and Quality of WU Writers' Colony May Rank First Among Nation's Campuses.” Washington University Record, November 21, 1974, pp. 3-4. Bernard Becker Medical Library Archives. https://digitalcommons.wustl.edu/record/12. Also see Washington University in St. Louis, The Source Newsroom. Georges, Cynthia, “Obituary: Jarvis A. Thurston, 93; Professor of English.” February 15, 2008. https://source.wustl.edu/2008/02/obituary-jarvis-a-thurston-93-professor-of-english/
- ^ a b "Famous Iowans: Van Duyn, Mona". DesMoinesRegister.com. The Des Moines Register. Archived from the original on July 30, 2012. Retrieved May 16, 2010.
- ^ a b c
"National Book Awards – 1971". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With acceptance speech by Van Duyn and essay by Dilruba Ahmed from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) - ^ a b "Poetry". Past winners & finalists by category. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
- ^ St. Louis Walk of Fame. "St. Louis Walk of Fame Inductees". stlouiswalkoffame.org. Archived from the original on 31 October 2012. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
- ^ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter V" (PDF). American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved July 29, 2014.
External links
- Mona Van Duyn Papers at Washington University in St. Louis — with brief biography
- Mona Van Duyn Archived 2009-01-10 at the Wayback Machine pages at Modern American Poetry, Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
- Mona Van Duyn at the Academy of American Poets
- Mona Van Duyn at the St. Louis Walk of Fame
- Mona Van Duyn Web Guide at the Library of Congress
- Mona van Duyn Biography and poems at the Poetry Foundation
- Formalist poets
- American Poets Laureate
- Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
- National Book Award winners
- Poets from Missouri
- University of Louisville faculty
- Washington University in St. Louis faculty
- University of Northern Iowa alumni
- University of Iowa alumni
- 1921 births
- 2004 deaths
- Deaths from bone cancer in the United States
- Bollingen Prize recipients
- Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
- American women poets
- Writers from Waterloo, Iowa
- People from Eldora, Iowa
- 20th-century American poets
- 20th-century American women writers
- Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters