Allen Grossman

Allen Grossman. Courtesy New Directions.

Allen Grossman
Born	January 7, 1932(1932-Template:MONTHNUMBER-07) Minneapolis, Minnesota
Died	June 27, 2014(2014-Template:MONTHNUMBER-27) (aged 82) Chelsea, Massachusetts
Occupation	Poet, Professor
Language	English
Nationality	USA
Alma mater	Harvard (BA, MA), Brandeis University (Phd)
Period	1959-2009
Genres	poetry, essays
Notable award(s)	Bollingen Prize (2009)
Spouse(s)	Judith Grossman

Allen Young Grossman (January 7, 1932 - June 27, 2014) was an American poet, literary critic, and academic, whose awards include the Bollingen Prize.

Life

Grossman was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was educated at Harvard University, graduating with an MA in 1956 after several interruptions. He went on to receive a Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1960, where he remained a professor until 1991. In 1991 he became the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at The Johns Hopkins University where until 2005 he taught in the English Department, primarily focusing on poetry and poetics.

Grossman's first marriage ended in divorce; he remarried to novelist Judith Grossman. His children are Jonathan Grossman and Adam Grossman from the first marriage, and Bathsheba Grossman, Austin Grossman, and Lev Grossman from the second.

Grossman died of complications from Alzheimer's at a nursing home in Chelsea, Massachusetts, on June 27, 2014. He was 82.

Writing

Washington Post: "I'd like to crown him one of our great Low Moderns; he's Wallace Stevens with stronger stories to anchor lame minds such as my own; he's Eliot without footnotes. Like all great poets, he faithfully serves both word and world – and us."

James Longenbach: "Here is the inevitable mix of everything Grossman can offer: a lyric tenderness, the weight of learning, and a strangeness matched only by poets now dead so long that it's hard to imagine resurrecting their prophetic energies in the language of twenty-first century America. Hard to imagine, except that by embracing what he once disdained as the "dreary language of carnal origin," this is exactly what Grossman has accomplished. 'Weird river,' says the rising sun as it weeps, 'flow on.'"

Recognition

On November 11, 2006, on the occasion of his retirement, several friends, colleagues and students of Grossman held a joint reading in his honor. These included Michael Fried, Susan Howe, Ha Jin, Mark Halliday, Breyten Breytenbach, Susan Stewart, and Frank Bidart. The event culminated with a reading by Grossman of poetry from his latest book of poems, Descartes' Loneliness.

Awards

• Garrison Award for Poetry (195?)
• Prize of the American Academy of Poetry (195?)
• A.B. Cohen Award for Teaching (1965)
• The Pushcart Prize (1975, 1987, 1990)
• Brandeis University Distinguished Service Award (1982)
• Guggenheim Fellowship (1982)
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship (1985)
• CASE Massachusetts State Professor of the Year (1987)
• Sara Teasdale Memorial Prize in Poetry (1987)
• Sheaffer-PEN/New England Award for Literary Distinction (1988)
• MacArthur Fellowship (1989)
• National Book Critics Circle Award nominee (1992)
• American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellow (1993)
• Bollingen Prize (2009)

Publications

Poetry

• A Harlot's Hire. Cambridge, MA: Walker-de Berry, 1962.
• The Recluse, and other poems. Cambridge, MA: Pym-Randall, 1965.
• And the Dew Lay All Night upon My Branch: Poems. Lexington, MA: Aleph, 1973.
• The Woman on the Bridge over the Chicago River: A book of poems. New York: New Directions, 1979.
• Of the Great House: A book of poems. New York: New Directions, 1982
• The Bright Nails Scattered on the Ground. New York: New Directions, 1986.
• The Ether Dome, and other poems new and selected, 1979–1991. New York: New Directions, 1991.
• The Philosopher's Window, and other poems. New York: New Directions, 1995.
• How to Do Things with Tears. New York: New Directions, 2001.
• Sweet Youth: Poems by a young man and an old man, old and new, 1953–2001. New York: New Directions, 2002.
• Descartes’ Loneliness. New York: New Directions, 2007.

Non-fiction

• Poetic Knowledge in the Early Yeats: A study of 'The Wind among the Reeds'. Charlottesville, VA: University Press of Virginia, 1969.
• Against Our Vanishing: Winter conversations with Allen Grossman on the theory and practice of poetry. Boston: Rowan Tree, 1982
  • expanded as part 1 of The Sighted Singer, 1992.
• The Sighted Singer: Two works on poetry for readers and writers. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992.
• The Long Schoolroom: Lessons in the bitter logic of the poetic principle. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press (Poets on Poetry), 1997.
• True-Love: Essays on Poetry and Valuing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

• List of U.S. poets
• List of literary critics

References

• Daniel Morris, ed. Poetry's Poet: Essays on the Poetry, Pedagogy, and Poetics of Allen Grossman. National Poetry Foundation. ISBN 978-0-943373-66-9. http://www.spdbooks.org/Products/10381/poetrys-poet-essays-on-the-poetry-pedagogy-and-poetics-of-allen-grossman.aspx. 

External references

Poems

• "City of David," from Descartes' Loneliness.
• "Dust", Allen Grossman, AGNI Online
• Allen Grossman at the Academy of American Poets (1 poem)
• Allen Grossman b. 1932 at the Poetry Foundation
• Allen Grossman at PoemHunter (1 poem)
• Allen Grossman: Poems

Audio / video

• Poetry readings and lectures at The University of Chicago, 18 Mar 2005, podcast
• Eulogy for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
• "Thrush Relinquished" read by Shannon Hardwick
• Allen Grossman at YouTube

Books

• Allen Grossman at Amazon.com

About

• Allan Grossman at New Directions
• "On Allan Grossman", Reginald Shepherd's Blog.
• Allen Grossman Official website.