Nelson Bentley (1918–1990) was an American poet and professor at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

. He was born in Elm,

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

. He graduated from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, receiving his bachelor's and then his master's degree from that university. Bentley studied under W. H. Auden. He was a friend and colleague of

Theodore Roethke Theodore Huebner Roethke ( ; May 25, 1908 – August 1, 1963) was an American poet. He is regarded as one of the most accomplished and influential poets of his generation, having won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1954 for his book ''The Wa ...

, among other

Northwest The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...

poets who created a distinct regional voice. In his forty years as a professor he conducted workshops, hosted readings at literary venues around the city and on radio and public television, juried poetry contests, edited poetry for journals and newspapers, and was a co-founder of

Poetry Northwest ''Poetry Northwest'' was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, Edith Shiffert and Nelson Bentley as co-editors. The first issue was 32 pages and included the work of Richmond La ...

and The Seattle Review. Although he was an accomplished poet in his own right, those who knew him believed his teaching was more important to him; his wife Beth Singer Bentley said after his death that he "cared more for his students' success than for his own." He founded the Castalia Reading Series, which started at the University of Washington in the mid-seventies and continues today.

Bibliography

* ''The Flying Oyster: The Collected Comic Apocalypses'', Bellowing Ark Press, 1997 * ''The Collected Shorter Poems'', Bellowing Ark Press, 1988 * ''Snoqualmie Falls Apocalypse'', Confluence Press, Lewiston, 1981 * ''Iron Man of the Hoh'', Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, 1978 * ''Moosecall'', Jawbone Press, 1977 * ''A Day at North Cove'', Raven's Mask Press, Seattle, 1974 * ''Grayland Apocalypse'', Bonefire Press, Seattle, 1972 * ''Sea Lion Caves and Other Poems'', from "New Poetry Series," Alan Swallow, Denver, 1967

References

1918 births 1990 deaths Poets from Washington (state) University of Washington faculty University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American poets {{Washington-bio-stub