Stanley Plumly



Stanley Plumly (born 1939 Barnesville, Ohio) is an American poet, who is professor of English and director of University of Maryland, College Park's creative writing program.

"This poet hymns unlikely things, finding beauty and grace where they were overlooked, so that a frightful contraption like an iron lung can become a miraculous vehicle for 'out-of-the-body travel', the major metaphor as well as the tile ot Plumly's finest collection (1977). In the same way, wildflowers we may have scarely noticed, like meadow-rue and peppergrass, are shown to have the same kind of unlikely and stirring beauty. Stirring, perhaps, because unlikely, rescued from a modest oblivion to enhance our sense of life.

''Stanley Plumly grew up in Ohio and Virginia and was educated at Wilmington College in Ohio and at Ohio University. He taught for a number of years at Ohio University, where he helped found the Ohio Review, and he has been a visiting writer at a number of other institutions, including Iowa, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Washington. At present, he teaches in the writing program at the University of Maryland."''

Life
His parents, Herman and Esther Plumly, lived in rural Ohio and Virginia.

Education
He graduated from Wilmington College, and from Ohio University with his M.A. and Ph D. in 1968.

Books

 * Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (W. W. Norton, 2008)
 * Old Heart (W. W. Norton, 2007)


 * Summer Celestial (Ecco/Norton, 1983)
 * Out-of-the-Body Travel (Ecco/Viking, 1977)
 * Giraffe (Louisiana Press, 1974)
 * How the Plains Indians Got Horses (Best Cellar Press, 1973)
 * In the Outer Dark (Louisiana State, 1970)

Periodicals and Anthologies
Plumley's work has been published in The Atlantic Monthly, The American Poetry Review, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Paris Review, among others. His poems and essays have been selected for 40 anthologies, including From the Other World: Poems in Memory of James Wright (2008).

Honors
In 2009, Plumly was named Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland by Governor Martin O'Malley.

Prizes

 * John William Corrington Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, 2010
 * Beall Award in Biography from PEN, 2009
 * Paterson Poetry Prize, 2008
 * LA Times Book Prize, 2008
 * Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, 1972
 * Ingram Merrill Foundation Award
 * Pushcart Prize on six occasions
 * Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
 * John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence

Fellowships

 * Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship
 * Ingram-Merrill Fellowship
 * 1973 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship
 * National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship on three occasions
 * 1991 poet in residence at The Frost Place