Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky (b. 1940), at a 2005 event.
Occupation	poet, literary critic, editor, academic, beerfest proctor
Nationality	American
Period	1968-present
Genre	poetry, literary criticism
Notable works	Landor's Poetry (1968)

Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 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 Czesław Miłosz and Dante Alighieri. He teaches at Boston University and is the poetry editor at Slate.

Biography

Robert Pinsky was born on October 20, 1940 in Long Branch, New Jersey. He received a B.A. from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and earned both an M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Stanford University, where he was a Stegner Fellow in creative writing. He was a student of poet & critic Yvor Winters at Stanford University.

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.

He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1974, and in 1997 he was named the United States Poet Laureate and Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, being the first and so far only poet to be named to three terms. He now lives in Cambridge, 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.

Pinsky wrote the libretto for Death and the Powers, a ground-breaking opera by composer Tod Machover. The opera received its world premiere in Monte Carlo in September of 2010, and its U.S. premiere at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater in March of 2011.

Pinsky is also the author of the interactive fiction game Mindwheel (1984) developed by Synapse Software and released by Broderbund.

Pinsky guest-starred in a 2002 episode of the animated sitcom The Simpsons, "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. Billy Collins was first asked to judge the "Meta-Free-Phor-All" but had to turn it down due to a prior commitment.

Published works

Poetry

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

Prose

• Landor's Poetry (1968)
• The Situation of Poetry (1977)
• Poetry and the World Ecco Press,(1988) ISBN 978-0880012164
• The Sounds of Poetry (1998)
• Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry (2002)
• The Life of David (2006)
• Thousands of Broadways: Dreams and Nightmares of the American Small Town (2009)

Libretto

• Death and the Powers, an opera by Tod Machover (2010)

Interactive fiction

• Mindwheel (1984)

As translator

• The Separate Notebooks by Czesław Miłosz, with Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass (1984)
• The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation (1995)

As editor

• 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)
• Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud (2009)

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

Books and printed materials

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

Online Resources

• Boston University Press Release
• Cortland Review Interview with Robert Pinsky
• Modern American Poetry on Robert Pinsky
• The Academy of American Poets on Robert Pinsky
• "Modernism and Memory," Pinsky's lecture from the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar

External links

• Ben Downing, Daniel Kunitz (Fall 1997). "Robert Pinsky, The Art of Poetry No. 76". The Paris Review.
• Robert Pinsky reads his poem Street Music.
• Essential Pleasures: Robert Pinsky's column on Poems Out Loud (April 2009)
• Interview with Robert Pinsky for Guernica Magazine
• The Favorite Poem Project Site
• IPA: Robert Pinsky reads a selection of his poetry
• Poet Robert Pinsky Takes on King David in a public radio interview on ThoughtCast!
• 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
• Watch Robert Pinsky read "Book" at Open-Door Poetry
• Robert Pinsky's interview about his time and inspirations in Maine