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Galway Kinnell

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Galway Kinnell
Occupationpoet
NationalityAmerican

Galway Kinnell (born February 1, 1927 in Providence, Rhode Island) is one of the most influential American poets of the latter half of the 20th century. An admitted follower of Walt Whitman, Kinnell rejects the idea of seeking fulfillment by escaping into the imaginary world. His best-loved and most anthologized poems are "St. Francis and the Sow" and "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps".[1]

Biography

Born in Providence, Rhode Island, Kinnell said that as a youth he was turned on to poetry by Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson, drawn to both the musical appeal of their poetry and the idea that they led solitary lives. The allure of the language spoke to what he describes as the homogeneous feel of his hometown, Pawtucket, Rhode Island.

Kinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948 alongside friend and fellow poet W.S. Merwin. He received his master of arts degree from the University of Rochester.[2] He traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East, and went to Paris on a Fulbright Fellowship. During the 1960s, the Civil Rights Movement in the United States caught his attention. Upon returning to the US, he joined CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and worked on voter registration and workplace integration in Hammond, Louisiana. This effort got him arrested. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the Vietnam War.[3] Kinnell draws upon both his involvement with the civil rights movement and his experiences protesting against the Vietnam War in his book-long poem The Book of Nightmares.[4]

Kinnell was the Erich Maria Remarque Professor of Creative Writing at New York University and a Chancellor of the American Academy of Poets. He is now retired and resides at his home in Vermont.

Work

While much of Kinnell's work seems to deal with social issues, it is by no means confined to one subject. Some critics have pointed to the spiritual dimensions of his poetry, as well as the nature imagery present throughout his work.[5] “The Fundamental Project of Technology” deals with all three of those elements, creating an eerie, chant-like and surreal exploration of the horrors atomic weapons inflict on humanity and nature. Sometimes Kinnell utilizes simple and brutal images (“Lieutenant! / This corpse will not stop burning!” from “The Dead Shall be Raised Incorruptible”) to address his anger at the destructiveness of humanity, informed by Kinnell’s activism and love of nature. There’s also a certain sadness in all of the horror—“Nobody would write poetry if the world seemed perfect.” There’s also optimism and beauty in his quiet, ponderous language, especially in the large role animals and children have in his later work (“Other animals are angels. Human babies are angels”), evident in poems such as “Daybreak” and “After Making Love We Hear Footsteps”.[6]

In addition to his works of poetry and his translations, Kinnell published one novel (Black Light, 1966) and one children's book (How the Alligator Missed Breakfast, 1982).

A close friend of James Wright until Wright's death in 1980, Kinnell's two elegies to Wright appear in From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright.

Works

Poetry collections

  • What a Kingdom It Was. Houghton Mifflin. 1960.
  • Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock. Houghton Mifflin. 1964.
  • Body Rags. Houghton Mifflin. 1968.
  • The Book of Nightmares. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1973. ISBN 9780395120989.
  • The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World: Poems 1946-64 (1974)
  • Walking Down the Stairs (a collection of interviews) (1978).
  • Mortal Acts, Mortal Words. Houghton Mifflin. 1980. ISBN 9780395291252.
  • "After Making Love We Hear Footsteps". Copper Canyon Press. 1980. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  • Blackberry Eating. William B. Ewert. 1980.
  • Selected Poems. Houghton Mifflin. 1982. ISBN 9780395320457. Pulitzer Prize; National Book Award
  • How the Alligator Missed Breakfast. Illustrator Lynn Munsinger. Houghton Mifflin. 1982. ISBN 9780395324363.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  • "The Fundamental Project of Technology". William B. Ewert. 1983. {{cite book}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)
  • The Past. Houghton Mifflin. 1985. ISBN 9780395393857.
  • When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone. Knopf. 1990. ISBN 9780394588568.
  • Three Books. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2002. ISBN 9780618219117.
  • Imperfect Thirst. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 1996. ISBN 9780395755280.
  • A New Selected Poems. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2001. ISBN 9780618154456. National Book Award finalist.
  • The avenue bearing the initial of Christ into the New World: poems, 1953-1964. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2002. ISBN 9780618219124.
  • Strong Is Your Hold. Houghton Mifflin. 2006. ISBN 9780618224975.
Translated collections

Novels

  • Black Light. Houghton Mifflin. 1966.

Further reading

  • Conesa-Sevilla, J. (2008). Dreaming With Bear (Kinnell's Poem). Ecopsychology Symposium at the 25th Annual Conference of the International Association for the Study of Dreams, Montreal, July 11.

References

  1. ^ Charles Molesworth (1987). "The Rank Favor of Blood". In Howard Nelson (ed.). On the poetry of Galway Kinnell. University of Michigan Press. ISBN 9780472063765.
  2. ^ Press release of November 8, 2000, from the University of Rochester
  3. ^ “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” January 30, 1968 New York Post
  4. ^ Poets.org
  5. ^ Modern Poets
  6. ^ Poetry Archive


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