Winfield Townley Scott

Winfield Townley Scott (April 30, 1910 – April 28, 1968) was an American poet, critic, and diarist.

Life
He was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, seven days after the arrival of Halley's Comet. He graduated from Brown University in 1931.

He penned an important early appreciation of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, "His Own Most Fantastic Creation: Howard Phillips Lovecraft" (1944). Another essay on Lovecraft, "Lovecraft as a Poet", first appeared in Rhode Island on Lovecraft (1945) and was reprinted elsewhere in a revised version as "A Parenthesis on Lovecraft as Poet." He corresponded with Lovecraft, and in 1950, advised J. Warren Thomas about a biographical thesis. He was editor of The Providence Journal and Evening Bulletin

Winfield Scott was primarily known for his journals. He published these as A Dirty Hand (1958). He corresponded with Ruth Lechlitner.

He committed suicide after a domestic quarrel in 1968.

Recognition
W.H. Auden included his poetry in the ''Faber Book of Modern American Verse in 1956. Several of his poems also appear in the book, "Dont Forget To Fly", an anthology collected by Paul B. Janeczko, Bradbury Press, published in 1981.

Awards

 * 1963 National Book Award finalist
 * 1939/1940 Shelley Memorial Award

Poetry

 * Wind the Clock (1941)
 * The Sword on the Table (1942)
 * To Marry Strangers (1945)
 * Mr. Whittier and Other Poems (1948)
 * The Dark Sister (1958)
 * Scrimshaw (1959)
 * Collected Poems 1937-1962 (1962)

Diaries

 * A Dirty Hand (University of Texas Press, 1969)

Essays

 * Exiles and Fabrications (Doubleday, 1961).