Frank Bidart
| Frank Bidart | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born |
May 27, 1939 Bakersfield, California, USA |
| Occupation | Poet, Professor |
| Nationality | United States |
| Alma mater | University of California at Riverside |
| Notable work(s) |
Desire (1997) Metaphysical Dog (2013) |
| Notable award(s) | Bollingen Prize in Poetry (2007) |
Frank Bidart (born May 27, 1939 in Bakersfield, California) is an American academic and poet.
Biography
In 1957, he began to study at the University of California at Riverside and went on to Harvard, where he was a student and friend of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop. He began studying with Lowell and Reuben Brower in 1962.[1]
He has been teaching English at Wellesley College since 1972, and has taught at nearby Brandeis University. He lives in Boston, and he is openly gay.[2][3] In his early work, he was noted for his dramatic monologue poems like "Ellen West" which Bidart wrote from the point of view of a woman with an eating disorder and "Herbert White" which he wrote from the point of view of a psychopath. He has also written openly about his family in the style of confessional poetry.
He co-edited the Collected Poems of Robert Lowell which was published in 2003 after years of working on the book's voluminous footnotes with his co-editor David Gewanter.
Bidart was the 2007 winner of Yale University’s Bollingen Prize in American Poetry. His chapbook, Music Like Dirt, later included in the collection Star Dust, is the only chapbook to be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Bibliography
Poetry
- Golden State (1973)
- The Book of the Body (1977)
- The Sacrifice (1983)
- In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965–90 (1990)
- Desire (1997) received the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and the 1998 Bobbitt Prize for Poetry; nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award
- Music Like Dirt (Sarabande Books, 2002), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize
- Star Dust (2005), in two sections
- Watching the Spring Festival (2008)[4]
- Metaphysical Dog (2013), nominated for the National Book Award in Poetry and the National Book Critics Circle Award
Other
- Editor, with David Gewanter, of Robert Lowell's Collected Poems (2003)
Awards and honors
- The Paris Review's first Bernard F. Conners Prize for "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky" (1981)
- Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1992)[5]
- Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America (1997)
- Wallace Stevens Award of The Academy of American Poets (2000); subsequently elected a Chancellor of the Academy (2003)
- Bollingen Prize in American Poetry (2007)
- Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Foundation Writer's Award
- Morton Dauwen Zabel Award given by the American Academy of Arts and Letters
- 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Poetry) shortlist for Metaphysical Dog[6][7]
References
- ↑ "Frank Bidart", Poets.org biography, retrieved 5 January 2007
- ↑ Yuan, Jada (24 April 2009), "James Franco’s Anti-Self", New York Magazine, retrieved 16 April 2010
- ↑ Hennessy, Christopher (2005), "Introduction", Outside the lines: talking with contemporary gay poets, University of Michigan Press, ISBN 0-472-06873-3
- ↑ "Bidart's first book of lyrics".
- ↑ "Book of Members, 1780–2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved June 25, 2011.
- ↑ Kirsten Reach (January 14, 2014). "NBCC finalists announced". Melville House Publishing. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
- ↑ Admin (January 14, 2014). "Announcing the National Book Critics Awards Finalists for Publishing Year 2013". National Book Critics Circle. Retrieved January 14, 2014.
- Rae Armantrout; John Ashbery; et al. (2002). The Best American Poetry 2002. Scribner Poetry. ISBN 0-7432-0386-0.
External links
- Frank Bidart at FSG
- Famous Poets and Poems Web site
- Notable Names Database
- Poetry Foundation
- Bookslut blog interview with Bidart
- Discussion of Bidart's "Golden State" and Diachronicity
|