Frederick Seidel
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Frederick Seidel (born February 19, 1936) is an American
poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...
.


Biography

Seidel was born to a family of Russian Jewish descent in
St. Louis St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
,
Missouri Missouri is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking List of U.S. states and territories by area, 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee ...
in 1936. His family owned Seidel Coal and Coke, which supplied coal to the brewing industry in St. Louis, as well as a West Virginia mine. Seidel graduated from
St. Louis Country Day School MICDS (Mary Institute and Saint Louis Country Day School) is a secular, co-educational, independent school home to more than 1,250 students ranging from grades Junior Kindergarten through 12. Its campus is located in the St. Louis suburb of Ladu ...
and earned his A.B. at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
in 1957. Archibald MacLeish arranged for Seidel to take a leave of absence from Harvard so he could travel around Europe. In Europe Seidel spent time in Paris (where he took a virtual vow of silence for three months) and visited Oxford and Cambridge in England, where he met T. S. Eliot in London. Seidel corresponded with
Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an expatriate American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Fascism, fascist collaborator in Italy during World War II. His works ...
in his youth and visited Pound at St. Elizabeths Hospital. Despite not understanding the
Chinese language Chinese (, especially when referring to written Chinese) is a group of languages spoken natively by the ethnic Han Chinese majority and many minority ethnic groups in Greater China. About 1.3 billion people (or approximately 16% of the wor ...
, Seidel suggested corrections to Pound's translations of
Confucius Confucius ( ; zh, s=, p=Kǒng Fūzǐ, "Master Kǒng"; or commonly zh, s=, p=Kǒngzǐ, labels=no; – ) was a Chinese philosopher and politician of the Spring and Autumn period who is traditionally considered the paragon of Chinese sages. C ...
, ''The Unwobbling Pivot'', which Pound accepted. After university Seidel moved with his wife to West Gloucester, Massachusetts, and then to Paris after Seidel became the Parisian editor of ''
The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...
'' in 1961. He lives on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City.


Career

In 1962, his first book, ''Final Solutions'', was chosen by a jury of
Louise Bogan Louise Bogan (August 11, 1897 – February 4, 1970) was an American poet. She was appointed the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945, and was the first woman to hold this title. Throughout her life she wrote poetry, fiction, ...
,
Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 29, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000. Biography Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massac ...
, and
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...
for an award sponsored by the
92nd Street Y 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a cultural and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, at the corner of East 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Founded in 1874 as the Young Men's Hebrew Association, the ...
, with a $1,500 prize. However, both the association and the publisher rejected the manuscript for several reasons, one of which was that, in their opinion, "matter in one of the poems libeled a noted living person". Another was that the national head of the
YMHA A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social, and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish culture and heritage through holiday celebrations, ...
/
YWHA A Jewish Community Center or a Jewish Community Centre (JCC) is a general recreational, social, and fraternal organization serving the Jewish community in a number of cities. JCCs promote Jewish culture and heritage through holiday celebrations, ...
expressed concern that some of the poems were "anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic", claims Seidel considered preposterous. When Seidel refused to make requested changes to his work, the prize was withdrawn and the promise of publication revoked. Bogan, Kunitz, and Lowell also resigned in protest. This incident, in which Seidel's poetry offended readers, was a defining moment in his career, and one that he would repeat in subsequent books by consciously trying to offend—or at least, to shock—his readers (although none of his subsequent books caused anywhere near the same degree of controversy as his first).
Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...
published the book the following year, but seventeen years would pass before Seidel published another work. His second book, ''Sunrise'', was the 1980
Lamont Poetry Selection The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach ...
. His book ''Going Fast'' was a finalist for the 1999
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...
. His collection, ''The Cosmos Poems'', was commissioned by the
American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History (abbreviated as AMNH) is a natural history museum on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City. In Theodore Roosevelt Park, across the street from Central Park, the museum complex comprises 26 inter ...
to celebrate the opening of the new
Hayden Planetarium The Rose Center for Earth and Space is a part of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The Center's complete name is The Frederick Phineas and Sandra Priest Rose Center for Earth and Space. The main entrance is located on the no ...
in 2000, and he won the
PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given biennially to an American poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by ...
in 2002. His collection ''Ooga-Booga'' was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for the 2007 International
Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. ...
. A limited run of his collection of new verse, ''Evening Man'' was published in 2008. The following year saw the publication of the career-spanning anthology ''Poems: 1959–2009''. In 2016,
Farrar, Straus and Giroux Farrar, Straus and Giroux (FSG) is an American book publishing company, founded in 1946 by Roger Williams Straus Jr. and John C. Farrar. FSG is known for publishing literary books, and its authors have won numerous awards, including Pulitzer ...
published his sixteenth and most recent collection of poems, ''Widening Income Equality.'' One of the poems in this collection, "The Ballad of Ferguson, Missouri," a response to the police shooting of teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, that was originally published in the November 25, 2014 edition of ''The Paris Review'', sparked controversy online and on social media. That same year, Seidel received ''The Paris Review's'' Hadada Award, given for "a distinguished member of the writing community who has made a strong and unique contribution to literature."


Style

In response to the publication of his ''Collected Poems'', ''
The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine Supplement (publishing), supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted man ...
s Wyatt Mason wrote a long piece on the poet, titled "Laureate of the Louche". New York Times book reviewer
David Orr David Duvall Orr (born October 4, 1944) is an American Democratic politician who served as the Cook County Clerk from 1990 to 2018. Orr previously served as alderman for the 49th ward in Chicago City Council from 1979 to 1990. He briefly served ...
, in his review of ''Poems: 1959-2009'', wrote, " eidel isone of poetry's few scary characters." Seidel is frequently characterized as such, in part because in his writing he often makes use of violent and disturbing sexual imagery and presents himself as a rather unlikeable aesthete who embraces his own "elite" brand of materialism (extolling, for instance, his love of
Ducati Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. () is the motorcycle-manufacturing division of Italian company Ducati, headquartered in Bologna, Italy. The company is directly owned by Italian automotive manufacturer Lamborghini, whose German parent company is Au ...
motorcycles and handmade shoes). However, Seidel often ironizes this persona, pushing it to cartoonish extremes. Seidel's poetry comprises more than his outrageous poetic persona. He also writes poems that comment on contemporary events and are political/satirical (as is his poem "
Bush Bush commonly refers to: * Shrub, a small or medium woody plant Bush, Bushes, or the bush may also refer to: People * Bush (surname), including any of several people with that name **Bush family, a prominent American family that includes: *** ...
's War"). His work is also notable in that he frequently makes use of rhyme and meter (both regular and irregular), including nursery rhyme-influenced references, repetitions and rhythms. One of Seidel's earliest influences was
Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...
. Seidel has stated, "The influence of Lowell n my first book ''Final Solutions'' wasunmistakable."Mason, Wyatt However, the critic
Richard Poirier Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'stron ...
noted that Seidel had broken free of this influence by the time he published his second book, ''Sunrise''.


Bibliography


Poetry

* ''Final Solutions'' (New York: Random House, 1963) * ''Sunrise'' (New York: Viking Press, 1979) * ''Men and Woman: New and Selected Poems'' (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984) * ''Poems, 1959-1979'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989) * ''These Days'' (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989) * ''My Tokyo'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993) * ''Going Fast'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998) * ''The Cosmos Poems'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000) * ''Life on Earth'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2001) * ''Area Code 212'' (New York, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2002) * ''The Cosmos Trilogy'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003) * ''Ooga-Booga'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006) * ''Evening Man'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008) * ''Collected Poems: 1959-2009'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009) * ''Nice Weather'', (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012) * ''Widening Income Inequality'', (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016) *''Peaches Goes It Alone'' (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018)


Critical studies and reviews of Seidel

* Review of ''Nice weather''.


Notes


References

*Source: Contemporary Authors Online. The Gale Group, 2002. PEN (Permanent Entry Number): 0000089250.


External links

*
Frederick Seidel on Poets.orgGriffin Poetry Prize biography, including video clip of a reading from ''Barbados''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Seidel, Frederick American male poets Jewish American writers Poets from Missouri Harvard Advocate alumni Writers from St. Louis 1936 births Living people 21st-century American Jews