Robert Pinsky

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 poems. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations, including poetry by Czesław Miłosz and Dante Alighieri. He teaches at Boston University and is the poetry editor at Slate.

Life
Robert Pinsky was born on October 20, 1940, in Long Branch, New Jersey, where he attended Long Branch High School. 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. At Stanford he was a student of poet & critic Yvor Winters.

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, 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 2010, and its U.S. premiere at Boston's Cutler Majestic Theater in March 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 TV show, "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.

Recognition

 * 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

Poetry

 * Sadness and Happiness. Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1975.
 * An Explanation of America. Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1979.
 * History of My Heart. Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1984.
 * The Want Bone. Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1990.
 * The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996. Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1996.
 * Jersey Rain. Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2000.
 * Gulf Music: Poems.Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 2007.
 * Impossible to tell(...)

Prose

 * Landor's Poetry. University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 1968.
 * The Situation of Poetry: Contemporary Poetry and Its Traditions, Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 1976.
 * Poetry and the World Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1988. ISBN 978-0880012164
 * The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1998.
 * Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry. Princeton University Press (Princeton, NJ), 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. Synapse Software, 1984.

Translated

 * Czeslaw Milosz, The Separate Notebooks (with Renata Gorczynski and Robert Hass). Ecco Press (New York, NY), 1984.
 * The Inferno of Dante: A New Verse Translation. illustrations by Michael Mazur, Farrar, Straus (New York, NY), 1994.

Edited
Except where noted, bibliographic information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.
 * The Handbook of Heartbreak: 101 Poems of Lost Love and Sorrow, Rob Weisbach Books (New York, NY), 1998.
 * Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project Anthology, with Maggie Dietz. W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2000.
 * Poems to Read: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology, with Maggie Dietz. W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002.
 * William Carlos Williams: Selected Poems, Library of America (New York, NY), 2004.
 * An Invitation to Poetry: A New Favorite Poem Project Anthology, with Maggie Dietz. W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 2004.
 * Essential Pleasures: A New Anthology of Poems to Read Aloud (2009)

Audio
 Except where noted, bibliographic information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.
 * Robert Pinsky (recording), New Letters (Kansas City, MO), 1983.
 * Amy Clampitt and Robert Pinsky Reading Their Poems (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1984.
 * Dorothy Barresi and Robert Pinsky Reading Their Poems (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1992.
 * The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress: Robert Pinsky (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1995.
 * Digital Culture and the Individual Soul (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1997.
 * Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Robert Pinsky Reading His Poems in the Montpelier Room, Library of Congress, May 7, 1998, Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1998.
 * Poetry and American Memory (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1998.
 * Sharing the Gifts: Readings by 1997-2000 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Robert Pinsky, 1999-2000 Special Poetry Consultants Rita Dove, Louise Glück, W. S. Merwin, 1999 Witter Bynner Fellows David Gewanter, Campbell McGrath, Heather McHugh (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1999.
 * Robert Pinsky Reading Selections from the Anthology, "Americans' Favorite Poems, the Favorite Poem Project," and Discussing Them in the Mumford Room, Library of Congress, October 7, 1999 (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1999.
 * The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress—Favorite Poets (recording), Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature (Washington, DC), 1999.
 * A Favorite Poem Reading with Frank Bidart, Louise Glück, and Robert Pinsky (recording), Recorded Sound Reference Center (Washington, DC), 2003.