Robert Peter Tristram Coffin (March 18, 1892 – January 20, 1955) was an American poet, educator, writer, editor and literary critic. Awarded the

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 ...

in 1936, he was the Poetry editor for ''

Yankee The term ''Yankee'' and its contracted form ''Yank'' have several interrelated meanings, all referring to people from the United States. Its various senses depend on the context, and may refer to New Englanders, residents of the Northern United S ...

'' magazine.

Early life

Born Robert Peter Coffin, the youngest of ten children to James William Coffin, a descendant of

Tristram Coffin (settler) Tristram Coffin (or Coffyn) (c. 1609 – 2 October 1681) was an immigrant to Massachusetts from England. In 1659 he led a group of investors that bought Nantucket from Thomas Mayhew for thirty pounds and two beaver hats. He became a prominent c ...

and Alice Mary Coombs on a saltwater farm on Sebascodegan Island he earned his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College in 1913 and then his Masters of Arts from

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

in 1918. In 1922 Coffin was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature by Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1936.

Career

Coffin served with the US Army in World War I. When he returned he taught English at Wells Preschool and then as the Pierce Professor at Bowdoin College. Modeled after his friend and fellow poet Robert Frost's

Bread Loaf Writers' Conference The Middlebury Bread Loaf Writers' Conference is an author's conference held every summer at the Bread Loaf Inn, near Bread Loaf Mountain, east of Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1926, it has been called by ''The New Yorker'' "the oldest and most ...

he was the co-founder with Carroll Towle of the Writers' Conference of the University of New Hampshire in 1956. Coffin also illustrated many of his books. Coffin died of a heart attack in Brunswick, Maine, on January 20, 1955, at the age of 62. He is buried in the Cranberry Horn Cemetery in Harpswell.

Partial bibliography

Non-fiction

*Book of Crowns and Cottages (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1925) *Laud, Storm Center of Stuart England (1930) *The Dukes of Buckingham, Playboys of the Stuart World (1931) *Portrait of an American (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1931) *Lost Paradise (Autobiography) (The Macmillan Co. New York, 1934) *The Kennebec: Cradle of Americans (Farrar & Rinehart, 1937) (First volume in the

Rivers of America Series The Rivers of America Series is a landmark series of books on American rivers, for the most part written by literary figures rather than historians. The series spanned three publishers and thirty-seven years. History The Rivers of America Series ...

) *Maine Ballads (The Macmillan Co., New York 1938) *Captain Abby and Captain John, an Around-the-World Biography (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1939). *Primer for America (1943) *Mainstays of Maine (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1944) *Maine Doings (Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1950)

Fiction and poetry

*Christchurch (Thomas Seltzer, New York, 1924) *Dew and Bronze (Albert & Charles Boni, 1927) *Golden Falcon (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1929) *The Yoke of Thunder (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1932) *Ballads of Square-Toed Americans (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1933) *Strange Holiness (1935) *Red Sky in the Morning (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1935) *John Dawn (1936) *Saltwater Farm. J. J. Lankes (illustration). (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1937.) *Thomas-Thomas-Ancil-Thomas (1941) *Book of Uncles (The Macmillan Co., New York, 1942) *Poems for a Son with Wings (1945) *People Behave Like Ballads (1946) *Yankee Coast (1947) *One Horse Farm (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1949) *Apples by Ocean (The Macmillan Company, New York, 1950) *On the Green Carpet (1951)

References

Sources

External links

*
Coffin collection, George J. Mitchell Department of Special Collections and Archives, Bowdoin College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Coffin, Robert American male poets American Rhodes Scholars Poets from Maine Writers from Brunswick, Maine Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners Bowdoin College alumni 1892 births 1955 deaths Wells College faculty Bowdoin College faculty 20th-century American poets 20th-century American male writers United States Army personnel of World War I Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters