Daniel Mark Epstein

Daniel Mark Epstein in 2015. Photo by T. Epstein. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Daniel Mark Epstein (born October 25, 1948) is an American poet, dramatist, and biographer.

Life

Epxtein was born in Washington, D.C.. He earned a B.A. from Kenyon College.

Epstein has written biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Bob Dylan, Walt Whitman, Nat King Cole, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Aimee Semple McPherson. He has published 8 volumes of poetry, including No Vacancies in Hell (1973), Young Men's Gold (1978), The Book of Fortune (1982), Spirits (1987), The Traveler's Calendar (2002), and "The Glass House" (2009) as well as a book of stories, Star of Wonder (1986) and the memoir Love's Compass (1990).

His poetry has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Nation, The Paris Review, Poetry Magazine, the Hudson Review, and many other magazines. His plays, which have been produced off-Broadway and in regional theaters, include Jenny and the Phoenix, The Midnight Visitor, and The Leading Lady.

In 2005, Epstein wrote the libretto for Jefferson & Poe: A lyric opera in two acts (with music by Damon Ferrante).

Writing

In a February 29, 2002, review in Booklists of Epstein's book of poetry The Traveler's Calendar, the reviewer wrote: "Biographies of Aimee Semple McPherson, Nat 'King' Cole, and Edna St. Vincent Millay have won Epstein greater renown, but his best writing is his mythically and historically haunted poetry.... Epstein's new work ... expresses the sorrows of the middle of life's journey with near-Dantesque poignancy."

Recognition

Epstein has been awarded an NEA Poetry Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Prix de Rome (1977), the Robert Frost Prize, the Emily Clark Balch Prize from the Virginia Quarterly, and an Academy Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2006.

Publications

Poetry

• Appearances. Gambier, OH: Pot-Hanger Press, Kenyon College, [1967?]
• No Vacancies in Hell: Poems. New York: Liveright, 1973.
• The Follies: Poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1977.
• Young Men's Gold: Poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1978.
• The Book of Fortune: Poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1982,
• Spirits: Poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1987.
• The Boy in the Well, and other poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1995.
• The 1970s. San Diego, CA: Greenhaven Press, 2000.
• The Traveller's Calendar: New poems. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 2002.
• The Glass House: New poems. Baton Rouge LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2009. ISBN 978-0-8071-3410-8
• Dawn to Twilight: New and selected poems. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press, 2015.

Non-fiction

• Star of Wonder: American stories and memoirs. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press, 1986.
• Love's Compass: A natural history of the heart. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1990.
• Sister Aimee: The life of Aimee Semple McPherson. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1993.
• Nat King Cole. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1999.
• What Lips my Lips have Kissed: The loves and love poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay. New York: Holt, 2001.
• Lincoln and Whitman: Parallel lives in Civil War Washington. New York: Ballantine, 2004.
• The Lincolns: Portrait of a marriage. New York: Ballantine, 2008.
• Lincoln's Men: The president and his private secretaries. New York: Smithsonian Books / Collins, 2009.
• The Ballad of Bob Dylan: A portrait. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

The Mountain & Tidewater Songs A Song Cycle by Damon Ferrante and Daniel Mark Epstein

• List of U.S. poets

References

• Jackson, Richard (1983). Acts of Mind: Conversations with Contemporary Poets. University of Alabama Press.
• Mallon, Thomas (2001). "Hustler With a Lyric Voice." The Atlantic. October 2001.
• Maslin, Janet (2008). "The Real Lincoln Bedroom." New York Times. July 3.
• Mitgang, Herbert (1993). "Evangelists of 2 Eras." New York Times. April 15.
• Moore, Lorrie (2002). "Burning at Both Ends." New York Review of Books. March 14.
• Ressner, Jeffrey (1999). "Nat King Cole." Time Magazine. December 5.
• Skloot, Floyd (2002). "The Rare Balance." Southern Review. June.
• Thurman, Judith (2001). "Books." The New Yorker. September 3.
• Wood, Susan (1978). "A Garland of Verse." The Washington Post. December 3.

External links

Poems

• Three poems (.pdf)
• Daniel Mark Epstein at the Poetry Foundation

Audio / video

• Daniel Mark Epstein at YouTube

Books

• Daniel Mark Epstein at Amazon.com