Hyam Plutzik (July 13, 1911 – January 8, 1962) was an American poet and educator and is best known for ''Horatio'', a long narrative poem that illustrates the elusiveness of memory through a search for the true identity of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Three of Plutzik’s books, including ''Horatio'', were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry, and his work continues to garner praise from leading scholars and critics. Since Plutzik’s death, several new books related to his life and work have been published, with Forewords written by noted poets and scholars, including
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, an ...
Daniel Halpern
Daniel Halpern (born September 11, 1945) is the founder of Ecco Press, an imprint of the publisher HarperCollins. He is also the author of nine books of poetry, as well as the co-founder, along with Paul Bowles, of the literary magazine ''Antaeus'' ...
(2017),
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author, playwright, and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Oba ...
(2021), and
Edward Hirsch
Edward M. Hirsch (born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including ''The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems'' (2010), which brings toget ...
(2023). In May 2012, ''The Paris Review'' published a feature article on Plutzik by Edward Moran and Phillip Witte, “A Great Stag – Broad Antlered: Rediscovering Hyam Plutzik.”
During his lifetime, Plutzik published poems in the '' New York Times Sunday Book Review'', '' Sewanee Review,
Beloit Poetry Journal
The ''Beloit Poetry Journal'' is an American poetry magazine established in 1950 at Beloit College.Hopkins Review, Epoch, Furioso,
Prairie Schooner
''Prairie Schooner'' is a literary magazine published quarterly at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln with the cooperation of UNL's English Department and the University of Nebraska Press. It is based in Lincoln, Nebraska and was first publi ...
,
Yale Review
''The Yale Review'' is the oldest literary journal in the United States. It is published by Johns Hopkins University Press.
It was founded in 1819 as ''The Christian Spectator'' to support Evangelicalism. Over time it began to publish more on ...
New World Writing
''New World Writing'' was a paperback magazine, a literary anthology series published by New American Library's Mentor imprint from 1951 until 1960, then J. B. Lippincott & Co.'s Keystone from volume/issue 16 (1960) to the last volume, 22, in 1 ...
,
The Nation
''The Nation'' is a progressive American monthly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's '' The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper ...
,
Saturday Review (U.S. magazine)
''Saturday Review'', previously ''The Saturday Review of Literature'', was an American weekly magazine established in 1924. Norman Cousins was the editor from 1940 to 1971. Under Cousins, it was described as "a compendium of reportage, essays a ...
Christian Science Monitor
''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles both in electronic format and a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper b ...
'', and ''
Kenyon Review
''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959 in litera ...
''.
According to the
Academy of American Poets
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 outrea ...
: "Plutzik’s work examines nature and the paradoxes of time, the relationship between poetry and science, and delves into questions of Jewish history and identity. In his report for the 1960 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, juror Alfred Kreymborg said of Plutzik, who was a finalist for his book ''Horatio'': "While he is not a musical poet like most of his contemporaries, he more than compensates by the strength and depth of his writing and the power of his visions and personality."
Biography
Born in Brooklyn in 1911, Hyam Plutzik was the son of Belarusian immigrants Samuel and Sadie Plutzik./sup> He spent his early childhood with his family on a farm in Southbury, Connecticut. Plutzik did not learn English until he started school, held at a local one-room schoolhouse, at the age of 7,/sup> as his family spoke Yiddish, Russian, and Hebrew at home. In 1923, when he was 12, Plutzik moved to
Bristol, Connecticut
Bristol is a suburban city located in Hartford County, Connecticut, United States, southwest-west of Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford. The city is also 120 miles southwest from Boston, and approximately 100 miles northeast of New York City. The ...
, where his father led a synagogue and community school.
An avid reader, Plutzik graduated from high school in 1928 and attended
Trinity College Trinity College may refer to:
Australia
* Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales
* Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...
in Hartford, Connecticut, on a Holland Scholarship. While at Trinity, Plutzik studied closely with Professor Odell Shepard, a Pulitzer-winning biographer. He also pursued his literary passions as an editor for the student newspaper, the ''Trinity'' ''Tripod,'' and associate editor of the school’s literary magazine, ''The Trinity Tablet''. The ''Tablet'' eventually published one of the writer’s early short stories, “The Golus,” as well as a set of his poems (“Three Paintings”)./sup>
In 1932, Plutzik graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Trinity and received a two-year fellowship to study literature at
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
./sup> In 1933, he won the Yale Poetry Prize for “The Three” (and would win the prize again seven years later for ‘Death at The Purple Rim”)/sup>. Yet, Plutzik left Yale after two years, his degree unfinished. He noted in a letter to his mentor that discomfort with the discipline of academic life was a motivating factor in his decision.
Inspired by his mentor Odell Shepard, Plutzik returned to the Connecticut countryside to seek a “Thoreauvian” lifestyle. During his time there, he wrote “My Sister,” a tribute to a younger sibling who had died at age four. While in Connecticut, Plutzik also wrote ''“Death at the Purple Rim,”'' another narrative poem exploring the ethical issues around nonviolence. Prominent critic
Mark Van Doren
Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...
described the latter poem as “strangely and clearly powerful,” writing that he had “read nothing better in a long while, and nothing e waslikelier to remember.” Plutzik later won the Yale Poetry Prize/sup> for “Death at The Purple Rim” (in 1941).
Plutzik moved back to Brooklyn in 1934, working as a feature writer and secretary to the editor-in-chief of the ''Brooklyn Daily Eagle''./sup> However, his break from academia was short-lived, as Plutzik returned to Yale in 1940 to complete his master’s degree with a thesis on
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...
and
Walt Whitman
Walter Whitman Jr. (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist, and journalist; he also wrote two novels. He is considered one of the most influential poets in American literature and world literature. Whitman incor ...
. In 1954, Plutzik would again return to Yale, this time on a Ford Foundation grant to study the relationship between poetry, science, and philosophy.
While he completed his oral exams, he did not submit a dissertation to receive the Doctorate. In 1941, over six months, he composed a 72-page letter to his mentor Odell Shepherd about his personal and intellectual growth since leaving Trinity. The letter was discovered in the Odell Shepard Archive at Trinity and published by the Watkinson Library in 2015, titled ''Letter From a Young Poet''; it was described as “a song of the self and the soul” by
Daniel Halpern
Daniel Halpern (born September 11, 1945) is the founder of Ecco Press, an imprint of the publisher HarperCollins. He is also the author of nine books of poetry, as well as the co-founder, along with Paul Bowles, of the literary magazine ''Antaeus'' ...
, who wrote the foreword to the book./sup>
Shortly after Pearl Harbor, Plutzik enlisted in the Army Air Corps, serving as a drill sergeant and first lieutenant. Stationed at various bases throughout the American South, he became keenly aware of the impact of segregation. This experience inspired such poems as “To Abraham Lincoln, That He Walk By Day” and “The Road.”
In 1944, he became an ordnance and education officer for the Eighth Army. He was stationed in Norfolk, England, and participated in support activities for the D-Day invasion./sup> He would later publish several poems that grew out of his military experience, including “On the Airfield at Shipdham,” “The Airman Who Flew Over Shakespeare’s England,” and “The Old War.” Plutzik also began drafting his long poem ''Horatio'' during this period.
Returning to civilian life, Plutzik became an instructor in the English department at the
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
. He spent 16 years (1946–62) teaching at the University of Rochester and served as Deane Professor of Rhetoric and Poetry from 1961 until his death the following year.0/sup> As a teacher, Plutzik created a solid foundation for poetry in the English department at the University of Rochester and Upstate New York, where he remained for the rest of his professional life.
Upon Plutzik’s death, the University of Rochester established the Plutzik Poetry Series—which has welcomed more than 300 readers—to celebrate his contributions to the school, the field of poetry, and his commitment to the continuous improvement of the craft.1/sup>
Hyam Plutzik died of melanoma at the age of 50 on January 8, 1962, in Rochester.2/sup> He was survived by his wife, Tanya Roth Plutzik, and their four children: Roberta, Alan, Jonathan, and Deborah. As of 2024, Tanya is still living at the age of 104.
----/sup> ''The New York Times'', 29 July 1956, p64: https://www.nytimes.com/1956/07/29/archives/samuel-plutzik-69-rabbi-and-educator.html/sup> BOA Editions: https://www.boaeditions.org/collections/hyam-plutzik/sup> Trinity College archives: https://commons.trincoll.edu/watkinson/category/college-archives/page/3//sup> ''The New York Times,'' May 23, 1941, p. 16
/sup> https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/05/08/a-great-stag-broad-antlered-rediscovering-hyam-plutzig/#:~:text=Plutzik%20twice%20won%20Yale's%20highest,Death%20at%20the%20Purple%20Rim.%E2%80%9D/sup> https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/hyam-plutzik/aspects-of-proteus//sup> Hyam Plutzik Archive, University of Rochester, Box 5: https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/finding-aids/D113, and https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-brooklyn-daily-eagle-hyam-plutzik-2/6657173//sup> Trinity College Tripod: https://trinitytripod.com/arts/plutziks-progress-watkinson-publishes-lost-letter//sup> ''Norfolk Tales, Myths & More'': https://norfolktalesmyths.wordpress.com/2018/05/20/hyam-plutzik-comes-to-shipdham/0/sup> Hyam Plutzik Archive, University of Rochester, Bpx 4: https://rbscp.lib.rochester.edu/finding-aids/D1131/sup> University of Rochester Library: https://rbscpexhibits.lib.rochester.edu/exhibits/show/plutzik/ramsay-1982/prose-poet2/sup> The New York Times, 10 January 1962, p. 47: https://www.nytimes.com/1962/01/10/archives/hyam-plutzik-50-poet-won-awards-rochester-professor-dies-was-former.html
Poetry and career
Plutzik submitted his first collection, “House of Gorya and Other Poems,” to ''Scribner’s'' in 1945. When Scribner’s turned down the manuscript, Plutzik penned an additional 52 poems and repackaged the work as ''Aspects of Proteus'', published by Harper and Brothers in 1949 His 1952 story, “Outcasts of Venus,” was published under the pseudonym of Anaximander Powell in
Two Complete Science-Adventure Books
''Two Complete Science-Adventure Books'' was an American pulp science fiction magazine, published by Fiction House, which lasted for eleven issues between 1950 and 1954 as a companion to '' Planet Stories''. Each issue carried two novels or l ...
, a pulp magazine. He also wrote a long speculative poem, “Mythos,” about a group of astronauts journeying through space. In 1959, Wesleyan University Press published Plutzik’s second collection, ''Apples from Shinar'' (reprinted in 2011 to mark Plutzik’s centennial).
In 1960, Plutzik wrote a plan for his future works, outlining the literary projects he hoped to bring to fruition in the coming years. These proposed works included a play in verse on the fall of Athens in the Peloponnesian wars. He also planned to create a long poem on the Holocaust, which was to include a section on Anne Frank and another on Lapichi, his ancestral hometown in Belarus.
''Horatio'', published in 1961, is perhaps the most notable of the poet’s work. Inspired by Shakespeare’s ''Hamlet'', Plutzik’s ''Horatio'' centers on the search for truth. The work focuses on Horatio’s efforts to “tell aright” the story of his friend, the Danish prince. Sections of ''Horatio'' had previously been published in magazines and Plutzik’s second collection, ''Apples from Shinar''.
Horatio was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry that year, with jurors
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 28, 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 Louis Untermeyer calling the poem “a fascinating puzzle.” Their notes go on to say ''Horatio'' is “primarily a tour de force … andingenious in its kaleidoscopic shifts from melodrama to metaphysics, from straightforward narrative to involved nightmare.”
Despite losing out to W. D. Snodgrass for the Pulitzer in 1962, Horatio’s reputation as a great work remains. In the 2011 Foreword to the Centennial edition of Plutzik’s Apple from Shinar, Yale scholar David Scott Kastan called ''Horatio'' “one of the genuinely original and important American long poems.”
Contemporary recognition
Plutzik garnered recognition for his talent well before releasing a full collection. During his time as a student, Plutzik won numerous prizes for his work. Of note, he was twice awarded Yale’s Albert Stanburrough Cook prize: for “The Three” (1933) and “Death at ''The Purple Rim''” (1941).
By the early 1960s, notable writers such as
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet and author. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for '' The Colossus and Other Poems'' (1960), '' Ariel'' (1965), a ...
,
Ted Hughes
Edward James Hughes (17 August 1930 – 28 October 1998) was an English poet, translator, and children's writer. Critics frequently rank him as one of the best poets of his generation and one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. He wa ...
, and
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 ...
were already among Plutzik’s early admirers. Plath first published Plutzik’s work in England in 1961 in the Critical Quarterly Poetry Supplement. In 1963, Ted Hughes and Thom Gunn brought more of Plutzik's work to British readers. The pair included 16 of Plutzik’s poems in their 1963 anthology, Five American Poets (Faber and Faber), alongside the work of Edgar Bowers,
Howard Nemerov
Howard Nemerov (February 29, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. Nemerov was the Edward Mallinckrodt Distinguished University Professor of English and Distinguished Poet in Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. He was twice ...
, Louis Simpson, and William Stafford.
When he became UK Poet Laureate in 1984, Ted Hughes revisited the impact of Plutzik’s poetry on his own work, saying Plutzik’s poems had “haunted imfor 25 years. And they seem even more alive and special now than they did when efirst found them.” He went on to say that, at Plutzik’s best, his work seems “marvelously achieved, a sacred book.”
Posthumous publications and recognition
''Horatio'' has continued to garner significant global attention. In the 1970s,
Joseph Brodsky
Iosif Aleksandrovich Brodsky (; ; 24 May 1940 – 28 January 1996) was a Russian and American poet and essayist. Born in Leningrad (now Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union, Brodsky ran afoul of Soviet authorities and was expelled ("strongly ...
translated parts of Plutzik’s epic narrative, ''Horatio'', into Russian for a theatrical presentation in the former Soviet Union. In 2014, Author James Shapiro included an excerpt of ''Horatio'' in ''Shakespeare in America: An Anthology from the Revolution to Now'' (Library of America), and the
New York Review of Books
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
** "New" (Paul McCartney song), 2013
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review called the work “an ambitious poem.”
In 1987, BOA Editions published Plutzik's ''Collected Poems'', edited by
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, an ...
, who wrote in the introduction that Plutzik’s poems “deserve to be far more widely known and admired than at present they are,” calling him “a poet of such remarkable achievement.” /sup>
In 1999, the Plutzik Library for Contemporary Writing was dedicated at the University of Rochester, and in 2004, Plutzik was recognized in a campus publication as one of the most outstanding teachers in the University's history.
In his 2001 book ''Cold War Poetry: The Social Text in the Fifties Poem'',
Edouard Brunner
Edouard Brunner (February 24, 1932 – June 25, 2007) was a Switzerland, Swiss diplomat, ambassador, and United Nations mediation, mediator.
Biography
Brunner was born in Istanbul. A product of a diplomatic family, he studied law in Geneva and e ...
wrote: “Plutzik’s achievement is stunning,” saying some of his works “go unmatched by any other postwar poetry except that of
Langston Hughes
James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. An early innovator of jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harl ...
or
Gwendolyn Brooks
Gwendolyn Elizabeth Brooks (June 7, 1917 – December 3, 2000) was an American poet, author, and teacher. Her work often dealt with the personal celebrations and struggles of ordinary people in her community. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Poet ...
.”
A film about Plutzik’s life and work, ''Hyam Plutzik: American Poet,'' was released in 2007, directed by Oscar nominee
Christine Choy
Christine Choy (born 1952) is a Chinese-American filmmaker. She is known for co-directing '' Who Killed Vincent Chin?'', a 1988 documentary film based on the murder of Vincent Jen Chin, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award. She co- ...
and Ku-Ling Siegel. It featured appearances by prominent American poets such as
Hayden Carruth
Hayden Carruth (August 3, 1921 – September 29, 2008) was an American poet, literary critic and anthologist. He taught at Syracuse University.
Life
Hayden Carruth was born in Waterbury, Connecticut and grew up in Woodbury, Connecticut. He grad ...
,
Donald Hall
Donald Andrew Hall Jr. (September 20, 1928 – June 23, 2018) was an American poet, writer, editor, and literary critic. He was the author of more than 50 books across several genres from children's literature, biography, memoir, essays, and inc ...
,
Galway Kinnell
Galway Mills Kinnell (February 1, 1927 – October 28, 2014) was an American poet. His dark poetry emphasized scenes and experiences in threatening, ego-less natural environments. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1982 collection, ''Se ...
,
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 28, 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
Grace Schulman
Grace Schulman (born ''Grace Jan Waldman''; 1935 in New York City). Daughter of Bernard and Marcella Waldman. She is an American poet. She received the 2016 Frost Medal for Distinguished Lifetime Achievement in American Poetry, awarded by the Poe ...
Carlos Pintado
Carlos Pintado (born 1974 in Cuba) is a Cuban–American writer, playwright and award-winning poet who immigrated to the United States in the early 90s. He received the prestigious 2014 Paz Prize for Poetry for his book '' Nine coins/Nueve Moned ...
Richard Blanco
Richard Blanco (born February 15, 1968) is an American poet, public speaker, author, playwright, and civil engineer. He is the fifth poet to read at a United States presidential inauguration, having read the poem " One Today" for Barack Oba ...
, the Obama Presidential Inaugural Poet and Miami Dade Poet Laureate.
In 2022, the University of Rochester’s Meliora Press published a commemorative edition of Hyam Plutzik’s never-before-published poem, ''The Seventh Avenue Express,'' to mark the 60th anniversary of the series. In the foreword, poet-scholar
Edward Hirsch
Edward M. Hirsch (born January 20, 1950) is an American poet and critic who wrote a national bestseller about reading poetry. He has published nine books of poems, including ''The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems'' (2010), which brings toget ...
wrote:
''“Plutzik was a seeker. He sought moments of mystical insight. The train is moving through tunnels, but the poet is also tunneling into himself. He moves above ground and struggles to surpass his own alienation, to find something stable and permanent inside himself, a bright jewel that will outlast the instability of time. He seeks something indestructible and permanent.”'' /sup>
In Fall 2024, Academic Studies Press will publish ''Hyam Plutzik, American Jewish Poet: Memory, Loss and Time,'' a collection of essays and poetry (including previously unpublished work) edited by Dr. Victoria Aarons, Dr. Sandor Goodhart, and Dr. Holli Levitsky of the Jewish American and Holocaust Literature Symposium, an affiliate of the American Literature Association. Twenty scholars will contribute to the volume, including Alan Berger, Maxim Shrayer,
Sara Horowitz
Sara Horowitz (born January 13, 1963) is a founder of the Freelancers Union and a proponent of mutualism. She has been working for unions since age 18, when she held a summer internship at the International Ladies Garment Workers Union. She ...
Cary Nelson
Cary Nelson (born 1946), is an American professor emeritus of English and Jubilee Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He was president of the American Association of University Professors bet ...
Rodger Kamenetz
Rodger Kamenetz (born 1950) is an American poet and author best known for ''The Jew in the Lotus'' (1994), an account of the historic dialogue between rabbis and the XIV Dalai Lama. His poetry explores the Jewish experience and in recent years, ...
.
----/sup> BOA Editions: https://www.boaeditions.org/collections/hyam-plutzik/sup> University of Rochester Meliora Press: https://www.rochester.edu/news/meliorapress/
Books
*''The Three'' (Yale University Prize Poem, 1933). New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1933. (Pamphlet)
*''Death at the Purple Rim'' (Yale University Prize Poem, 1941). Brooklyn: The Artisan Press, 1941. 37pp
*''Aspects of Proteus, a book of poems''. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1949. 94pp.
*''Apples from Shinar: A book of poems''. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 1959. 59pp.
*''Horatio''. New York: Atheneum, 1961. 89pp.
*''Hyam Plutzik: The Collected Poems'', with a foreword by Anthony Hecht. Brockport, N.Y..: BOA Editions, 1987. 313pp.
*Apples from Shinar: Special Edition, with an afterword by David Scott Kastan. Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, 2011. 74pp.
*32 Poems / 32 Poemas. Bilingual (English-Spanish) edition with a foreword by Richard Blanco. Miami: Suburbano Ediciones, 2021.
Periodicals
Plutzik also published poems in the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Sewanee Review,
Beloit Poetry Journal
The ''Beloit Poetry Journal'' is an American poetry magazine established in 1950 at Beloit College.Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
: Prize Poem (J.S. Cook Award for “The Three”), 1933
*
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
: Prize Poem (J.S. Cook Award for “The Purple Rim”), 1941
*
National Institute of Arts and Letters
The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqua ...
: Award for accomplishment in lyric and narrative poetry. 1950
*Poetry Awards Prize: for a Book of Verse (subsequently known as the Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards). Shared award with Rolfe Humphries. 1951
*
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
Summer Faculty Fellowship for Creative Writing. 1954
*
Ford Foundation
The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a $25,000 (about $550,000 in 2023) gift from Edsel Ford. ...
Faculty Fellowship for study of science as background to modern poetry 1954–1955.
*
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
Summer Faculty Fellowship for Creative Writing. 1954
*
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York, United States. It was founded in 1850 and moved into its current campus, next to the Genesee River in 1930. With approximately 30,000 full ...
Summer Faculty Fellowship for Creative Writing. 1958
* Lillian Fairchild Award (Rochester) for Best Work of Imagination. 1959
*“Horatio” selected as a finalist for the
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prizes () are 23 annual awards given by Columbia University in New York City for achievements in the United States in "journalism, arts and letters". They were established in 1917 by the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made his fo ...
1961
*The city of Rochester declares May 11, 2002, Hyam Plutzik Day in recognition of his contributions to the community. “Sprig of Lilac” is noted as the official poem of the Lilac Festival.