Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky in 2005. Photo by Jared C. Benedict. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Robert Pinsky
Born	October 20 1940 (1940-10-20). Long Branch, New Jersey, United States
Occupation	poet, literary critic, editor, academic, beerfest proctor
Nationality	American
Period	1968-present
Genres	poetry, literary criticism
Notable work(s)	Landor's Poetry (1968)
Influences Samuel Taylor Coleridge Matthew Arnold T.S. Eliot W.H. Auden

Robert Pinsky (born October 20, 1940) is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator, who served as U.S. Poet laureate.

Life

Youth and education

Robert Pinsky was born on October 20, 1940, in Long Branch, New Jersey, where he attended Long Branch High School.

He earned a B.A. from Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and both an M.A. and a 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.

Career

Pinsky is the author of 19 books, most of which are collections of his own poems. His published work also includes critically acclaimed translations of poetry by Czesław Miłosz and Dante Alighieri. He teaches at Boston University (BU) and is the poetry editor at Slate.

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.

ROBERT PINSKY - Poets in Person - Episode 7

He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and teaches in the graduate writing program at BU.

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.

Writing

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.

Recognition

He received a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship in 1974.

Of his collections, An Explanation of America (1979) was awarded the Saxifrage Prize; History of My Heart (1983) won the William Carlos Williams Prize; and The Figured Wheel: New and collected Poems, 1965-1995, won the Lenore Marshall Prize.

In 1997 he was appointed U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, reappointed in 1998; and appointed for an unprecedented 3rd term in 1999.

Awards

• 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

Publications

Poetry

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

Non-fiction

• Landor's Poetry. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.
• The Situation of Poetry: Contemporary Poetry and Its Traditions. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976.
• Poetry and the World. New York: Ecco Press, 1988. ISBN 978-0-88001216-4
• The Sounds of Poetry: A Brief Guide. New York: Farrar, Straus, 1998.
• Democracy, Culture, and the Voice of Poetry. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.

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). New York: Ecco Press, 1984.
• Dante Alighieri, The Inferno of Dante: A new verse translation. (illustrated by Michael Mazur). New York: Farrar, Straus, 1994.

Edited

• The Handbook of Heartbreak: 101 poems of lost love and sorrow. New York: Rob Weisbach Books, 1998.
• Americans' Favorite Poems: The Favorite Poem Project anthology (with Maggie Dietz). New York: Norton, 2000.
• Poems to Read: A new Favorite Poem Project anthology (with Maggie Dietz). New York: Norton, 2002.
• William Carlos Williams, Selected Poems. New York: Library of America, 2004.
• An Invitation to Poetry: A new Favorite Poem Project anthology (with Maggie Dietz). New York: Norton, 2004.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

Audio / video

Robert Pinsky Reads The Forgetting

Robert Pinsky reads his poems "The Want Bone" and "Shirt"

Robert Pinsky's PoemJazz

Impossible to tell - Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky Reads From 'Selected Poems'

• Robert Pinsky (recording).Kansas City, MO: New Letters, 1983.
• Amy Clampitt and Robert Pinsky Reading Their Poems (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1984.
• Dorothy Barresi and Robert Pinsky Reading Their Poems (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1992.
• The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress: Robert Pinsky (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1995.
• Digital Culture and the Individual Soul (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1997.
• Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry Robert Pinsky Reading ... May 7, 1998. Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1998.
• Poetry and American Memory (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 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), Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature,, 1999.
• Robert Pinsky Reading Selections from the Anthology, "Americans' Favorite Poems: The favorite poem project" (recording), Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1999.
• The Poet and the Poem from the Library of Congress—Favorite Poets (recording). Washington, DC: Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, 1999.
• A Favorite Poem Reading with Frank Bidart, Louise Glück, and Robert Pinsky (recording). Washington, DC: Recorded Sound Reference Center, 2003.

Except where noted, discographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.

See also

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

References

• The Art of Poetry LXXVI: Robert Pinsky" The Paris Review No. 144 (1997), 180-213 (interview)

External links

• "Repetition"

Poems

• Robert Pinsky profile & 7 poems at the Academy of American Poets
• Robert Pinsky b.1940 at the Poetry Foundation
• Robert Pinsky: Online poems
• Robert Pinsky at PoemHunter (20 poems)

Audio / video

• Robert Pinsky (b. 1940) at The Poetry Archive
• Robert Pinsky: Poems at the Internet Poetry Archive.
• Robert Pinsky at YouTube
• Essential Pleasures: Robert Pinsky's column on Poems Out Loud (April 2009)
• Robert Pinsky at YouTube
• Poet Robert Pinsky Takes on King David in a public radio interview on ThoughtCast!
• Robert Pinsky is the special guest judge for the Sean Penn vs. Stephen Colbert's "Meta-Free-Phor-All: Shall I Nail Thee to a Summer's Day?" Metaphor-Off
• Watch Robert Pinsky read "Book" at Open-Door Poetry
• "Modernism and Memory," Pinsky's lecture from the 2010 Key West Literary Seminar

Books

• Robert Pinsky at Amazon.com

About

• Robert Pinsky at the Encyclopædia Britannica
• Robert Pinsky at NNDB.
• Robert Pinsky (1940- ) at Modern American Poetry.
• Boston University Press Release
• Cortland Review Interview with Robert Pinsky
• Ben Downing, Daniel Kunitz (Fall 1997). "Robert Pinsky, The Art of Poetry No. 76". The Paris Review. http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1218/the-art-of-poetry-no-76-robert-pinsky. 
• Interview with Robert Pinsky for Guernica Magazine
• Robert Pinsky's interview about his time and inspirations in Maine

Etc.

• The Favorite Poem Project Site