Robert Samuel "Sam" Gwynn (born 1948,

Eden, North Carolina Eden is a city in Rockingham County, North Carolina, Rockingham County in the U.S. state of North Carolina and is part of the Piedmont Triad, Greensboro-High Point Metropolitan Statistical Area of the Piedmont Triad region. As of the United State ...

) 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 (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and anthologist associated with

New Formalism New Formalism is a late 20th- and early 21st-century movement in American poetry that has promoted a return to metrical, rhymed verse and narrative poetry on the grounds that all three are necessary if American poetry is to compete with novels a ...

Life

Gwynn is married and lives in

Beaumont, Texas Beaumont is a city in the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat of Jefferson County, Texas, Jefferson County, within the Beaumont–Port Arthur metropolitan area, located in Southeast Texas on the Neches River about east of Houston (city ...

. He graduated from

Davidson College Davidson College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Davidson, North Carolina, United States. It was established in 1837 by the Concord Presbytery and named after American Revolutiona ...

in 1969, where he won the Vereen Bell Award for creative writing twice, played varsity football, and was a member of the school's championship team on the General Electric College Bowl. He did graduate work at

Middlebury College Middlebury College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalism in the United States, Congregationalists, Middlebury w ...

Bread Loaf School of English Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont, United States. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. In the fall of 2024, the college enrolled 2, ...

and later earned an M.A. and an M.F.A. from the

University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas (U of A, UArk, or UA) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States. It is the Flagship campus, flagship campus of the University of Arkan ...

Poetry and career

Gwynn's first full-length book, ''The Drive-in'', won the Breakthrough Award of the University of Missouri Press in 1986. He has received the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse of the

American Academy 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 of the United States, music, and Visual art of the United States, art. Its fixed number ...

, served as an original faculty member of the West Chester University Conference on Form and Narrative in Poetry, and was included in the first significant anthology of New Formalism, ''Rebel Angels: Twenty-five Poets of the New Formalism'' (Story Line Press 1995). In 1997, Gwynn was selected as a University Professor at

Lamar University Lamar University (Lamar or LU) is a public university in Beaumont, Texas, United States. Lamar has been a member of the Texas State University System since 1995. It was the flagship institution of the former Lamar University System. As of the ...

, and he has been honored by

Phi Kappa Phi The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi (or simply Phi Kappa Phi or ) is an honor society established in 1897 to recognize and encourage superior scholarship without restriction as to the area of study, and to promote the "unity and democracy of educa ...

. In September, 2015, he was appointed Program Director of the

West Chester University Poetry Conference The West Chester University Poetry Conference is an international poetry conference that has been held annually since 1995 at West Chester University, Pennsylvania, United States. It hosts various panel discussions and poetry craft workshops, wh ...

Critical reception

In his introduction to Gwynn's volume ''No Word of Farewell: Poems 1970-2000'',

Dana Gioia Michael Dana Gioia (; born December 24, 1950) is an American poet, literary critic, literary translator, and essayist. Since the early 1980s, Gioia has been considered part of the highly controversial and countercultural literary movements w ...

, poet and former chair of the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

, wrote, "

wynn Wynn or wyn (; also spelled wen, win, ƿynn, ƿyn, ƿen, and ƿin) is a letter of the Old English Latin alphabet, Old English alphabet, where it is used to represent the sound . History The letter "W" While the earliest Old English texts ...

is ingeniously funny... ndan effortless master of verse forms. No American poet of his generation has written better sonnets, and very few can equal him in the ballade, couplet, rondeau, or pantoum–not to mention the half dozen new forms he has invented"; further, according to Gioia, "Gwynn juxtaposes styles and subjects not customarily seen together–mythic and modish images phrased in language alternatively sublime and debased–but told with such force of imagination and assured musicality that the resulting poems seem not idiosyncratic but inevitable." A collection of Gwynn's papers is housed at Texas State University at San Marcos in the Southwestern Writers Collection. A link to this collection can be found on T.A.R.O. (Texas Archival Resources Online.)

Works

* ''Bearing & Distance'', Cedar Rock Press 1977 * ''The Narcissiad'', Cedar Rock Press, 1981, * ''The Drive-in'', University of Missouri Press, 1986, * ''No Word of Farewell: Poems 1970-2000'', Story Line Press, 2001, * ''Dogwatch'', Measure Press, 2014, *

Editor

* *''Contemporary American Poetry: A Pocket Anthology'', Pearson/Longman, 2005.

References

External links

A Guide to the R. S. Gwynn Papers, 1976-1994
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gwynn, R. S. American male poets Formalist poets 1948 births Living people Lamar University people West Chester University faculty People from Eden, North Carolina Members of Phi Kappa Phi