August Kleinzahler (born December 10, 1949) is an American poet.

Life and career

Until he was 11, he went to school in

Fort Lee, New Jersey Fort Lee is a Borough (New Jersey), borough at the eastern border of Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, situated along the Hudson River atop The Palisades (Hudson River), The Palisades. As of the 2020 Uni ...

, where he grew up. He then commuted to the

Horace Mann School Horace Mann School (also known as Horace Mann or HM) is an American private, independent college-preparatory school in the Bronx, founded in 1887. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from the New Yo ...

in the

Bronx The Bronx ( ) is the northernmost of the five Boroughs of New York City, boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Bronx County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. It shares a land border with Westchester County, New York, West ...

, graduating in 1967. He wrote poetry from this time, inspired by

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...

and

Kenneth Rexroth Kenneth Charles Marion Rexroth (December 22, 1905 – June 6, 1982) was an American poet, translator, and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement. Althoug ...

translations, among other works. He started college at the

University of Wisconsin–Madison The University of Wisconsin–Madison (University of Wisconsin, Wisconsin, UW, UW–Madison, or simply Madison) is a public land-grant research university in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. It was founded in 1848 when Wisconsin achieved st ...

but dropped out and after taking a year out of school, he ended up, 1971, at the

University of Victoria The University of Victoria (UVic) is a public research university located in the municipalities of Oak Bay, British Columbia, Oak Bay and Saanich, British Columbia, Canada. Established in 1903 as Victoria College, British Columbia, Victoria Col ...

Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. Drawn to the New York poets, including

Frank O’Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

, Kleinzahler then discovered the work of

Basil Bunting Basil Cheesman Bunting (1 March 1900 – 17 April 1985) was a British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of '' Briggflatts'' in 1966, generally regarded as one of the major achievements of the modernist traditi ...

, who had a major influence on Kleinzahler's search for his own voice in poetry. He described Bunting's 1966 long poem ''Briggflatts'' (which its author described as "an autobiography, but not a statement of fact") as "everything I wanted in poetry.” Bunting taught a creative writing course at Victoria: "He began with some poems by

Hardy Hardy may refer to: People * Hardy (surname) * Hardy (given name) * Hardy (singer), American singer-songwriter Places Antarctica * Mount Hardy, Enderby Land * Hardy Cove, Greenwich Island * Hardy Rocks, Biscoe Islands Australia * Hardy, ...

and

Hopkins Hopkins is an English and Welsh patronymic surname derived from the personal name Hopkin and the genitive ending -''s''. Hopkin is itself a pet form of the name Hobb, a shortening of Robert (with alteration of the initial consonant). Notable peop ...

, '' The Wreck of the Deutschland'', and went up to

Yeats William Butler Yeats (, 13 June 186528 January 1939), popularly known as W. B. Yeats, was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer, and literary critic who was one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the ...

and

Pound Pound or Pounds may refer to: Units * Pound (currency), various units of currency * Pound sterling, the official currency of the United Kingdom * Pound (mass), a unit of mass * Pound (force), a unit of force * Rail pound, in rail profile * A bas ...

, then David Jones, Williams, the poets who were important to Bunting,

Hugh MacDiarmid Christopher Murray Grieve (11 August 1892 – 9 September 1978), best known by his pen name Hugh MacDiarmid ( , ), was a Scottish poet, journalist, essayist and political figure. He is considered one of the principal forces behind the Scottish ...

Lorine Niedecker Lorine Faith Niedecker (English: pronounced Needecker; May 12, 1903 – December 31, 1970) was an American poet. Her poetry is known for its spareness, its focus on the natural landscapes of Wisconsin and the Upper Midwest (particularly waterscape ...

, and H.D. All he did was smoke unfiltered Player's and read to us". The Anglo-American poet

Thom Gunn Thomson William "Thom" Gunn (29 August 1929 – 25 April 2004) was an English poet who was praised for his early verses in England, where he was associated with Movement (literature), The Movement, and his later poetry in America, where he adop ...

(1929–2004) was also a major influence: "the honest treatment of the poetic material at hand, not slipping into rhetorical or poetic postures, inflating subject matter or dodging difficulty," Kleinzahler explained in an interview in

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 new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

in the fall of 2007. Gunn would become a close friend.William Corbett (Fall 2007). "August Kleinzahler, The Art of Poetry No. 93". ''The Paris Review''

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. His '' Spring and All'' (1923) was written in the wake of T. S. Eliot's '' The Waste Land'' (1922). ...

was also an important source of inspiration. Amassing gambling debts and wanted by the police, Kleinzahler's brother committed suicide in 1971, when the poet was 21. They were very close and Kleinzahler was devastated by the death. The book ''Storm over Hackensack'' is dedicated to him and '' Cutty, One Rock'' is about him. Kleinzahler commented "he remains a sort of lodestar for me, encouraging my better, braver self." After college, Kleinzahler spent a year in Alaska working in "manpower jobs: hard labor" and then got a job at the Alaska State Museum. He got his

teaching credential A certified teacher (also known as registered teacher, licensed teacher, or professional teacher based on jurisdiction) is an educator who has earned credentials from an authoritative source, such as a government's regulatory authority, an educ ...

and then lived in Montreal for two and a half years. A passionate blues lover, Kleinzahler wrote a music column for the ''San Diego Reader'' for many years. He has lived in the

Haight Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight Street, Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called the Haight and the Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of th ...

neighborhood in

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

but has retained strong ties to his old home base in New Jersey. In 2005 he was named the first poet laureate of Fort Lee. Kleinzahler is the author of ten books of poetry, including ''The Strange Hours Travelers Keep'' and ''Sleeping It Off in Rapid City''. He has also published a non-fiction work, ''Cutty, One Rock (Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained)''.

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of th ...

commented: "August Kleinzahler's verse line is always precise, concrete, intelligent and rare - that quality of 'chiseled' verse memorable in Bunting's and

's work. A loner, a genius."

Awards

* 1989

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

*2000

Berlin Prize The Berlin Prize is a residential fellowship at the Hans Arnhold Center, awarded by the American Academy in Berlin to scholars and artists. Each year, about 20 fellows are selected. The stated mission of the program is to improve the transatlan ...

*2004

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...

* 2008

Lannan Literary Award The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...

in Poetry for ''Sleeping it Off in Rapid City'' * 2008

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is a Canadian poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, two separate awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language. I ...

) * ''Sleeping It Off in Rapid City'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, (winner of the 2008 National Book Critics Circle Award) * ''The Hotel Oneira'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013, * ''Before Dawn on Bluff Road / Hollyhocks in the Fog: Selected New Jersey Poems / Selected San Francisco Poems'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017 *''Snow Approaching on the Hudson'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020

Prose

* ''Cutty, One Rock : Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, * ''Music: I-LXXIV'', Pressed Wafer, 2009, * ''Sallies, Romps, Portraits, and Send-Offs: Selected Prose, 2000-2016'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2017, * (as editor with Michael Nott and

Clive Wilmer Clive Wilmer (10 February 1945 – 13 March 2025) was a British poet, who published nine volumes of poetry. He was also a critic, literary journalist, broadcaster and lecturer. Life and career Clive Wilmer was born on 10 February 1945 in Harr ...

) ''The Letters of Thom Gunn'', Faber & Faber, 2021,

Critical studies and reviews of Kleinzahler

* Review of ''The Hotel Oneira''.

References

External links

Jesse Nathan Interviews August Kleinzahler, 2016
''Cordite Poetry Review''
Diary Entry at London Review of Books February, 2010August Kleinzahler at FSGGriffin Poetry Prize biographyGriffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clipGriffin Poetry Prize 2005 keynote speech, including audio clips

* ttps://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/24/books/24garn.html?ex=1209700800&en=81826d8a5b068d91&ei=5070&emc=eta1 Bullies, Addicts and Losers: A Poet Loves Them All, ''New York Times'', April 24, 2008
Kleinzahleresque, ''Open Letters'', May, 2008

"Writing in the realm of fire: August Kleinzahler"
''The Guardian'', 18 April 2009, James Campbell
"An Interview with August Kleinzahler"
''Bookslut'', January 2005 * * August Kleinzahler Papers. Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. {{DEFAULTSORT:Kleinzahler, August Living people 1949 births Poets from New Jersey American male poets Horace Mann School alumni Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Berlin Prize recipients Municipal poets laureate in the United States Writers from Jersey City, New Jersey