William De Witt Snodgrass (January 5, 1926 – January 13, 2009) was an American poet who also wrote under the pseudonym S. S. Gardons. He won the 1960

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. The award came five years after the first Pulitzers were awarded in other categories; Joseph Pulitzer's will had not ment ...

Life

Snodgrass was born on January 5, 1926, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to Bruce De Witt, an accountant, and Jesse Helen (Murchie) Snodgrass. The family lived in Wilkinsburg, but drove to Beaver Falls for his birth since his grandfather was a doctor in the town. Eventually the family moved to Beaver Falls and Snodgrass graduated from the local high school in 1943. He then attended

Geneva College Geneva College is a private Christian college in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1848 in Northwood, Ohio, the college moved to its present location in 1880. It enrolls about 1,400 undergraduates in over 30 majors, as wel ...

until 1944 when he was drafted into the

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the naval warfare, maritime military branch, service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is the world's most powerful navy with the largest Displacement (ship), displacement, at 4.5 millio ...

. After demobilization in 1946, Snodgrass transferred to the

University of Iowa The University of Iowa (U of I, UIowa, or Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized int ...

and enrolled in the

Iowa Writers' Workshop The Iowa Writers' Workshop, at the University of Iowa, is a graduate-level creative writing program. At 89 years, it is the oldest writing program offering a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree in the United States. Its acceptance rate is between 2 ...

, originally intending to become a playwright but eventually joining the poetry workshop which was attracting as teachers some of the finest poetic talents of the day, among them

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

Randall Jarrell Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 – October 14, 1965) was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—a position that now bears the title Poet ...

and

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...

. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949, a Master of Arts degree in 1951, and a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts admi ...

degree in 1953.See the biographical sketch at
/ref> Snodgrass was known to friends throughout his life as "De", pronounced "dee","Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.D. Snodgrass dies"
, Associated Press, January 14, 2009, retrieved same day but only published using his initials. He had a long and distinguished academic career, having taught at Cornell (1955–57), Rochester (1957–58), Wayne State (1959–68),

Syracuse Syracuse most commonly refers to: * Syracuse, Sicily, Italy; in the province of Syracuse * Syracuse, New York, USA; in the Syracuse metropolitan area Syracuse may also refer to: Places * Syracuse railway station (disambiguation) Italy * Provi ...

(1968–77), Old Dominion (1978–79), and the

University of Delaware The University of Delaware (colloquially known as UD, UDel, or Delaware) is a Statutory college#Delaware, privately governed, state-assisted Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Newark, Delaware, United States. UD offers f ...

. He retired from teaching in 1994 to devote himself full-time to his writing. This included autobiographical sketches, essays, and the critical verse "deconstructions" of ''De/Compositions''. He died in his home in

Madison County, New York Madison County is a county located in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 68,016. Its county seat is Wampsville. The county is named after James Madison, the fourth president of the United States, and was ...

, aged 83, following a four-month battle with lung cancer, and was survived by his fourth wife, writer Kathleen Snodgrass. Snodgrass had married his first wife, Lila Jean Hank, in 1946, by whom he had a daughter, Cynthia Jean. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1953 and it was the separation from his daughter as a result that became the subject of his first collection, ''Heart's Needle''. The following year Snodgrass married his second wife, Janice Marie Ferguson Wilson. Together they have a son, Russell Bruce, and a stepdaughter, Kathy Ann Wilson. Divorcing again in 1966, he married his third wife, Camille Rykowski in 1967 but this ended in 1978. His fourth marriage to Kathleen Ann Brown was in 1985.

Literary career

Snodgrass's first poems appeared in 1951, and throughout the 1950s he published in magazines such as ''

Botteghe Oscure ''Botteghe Oscure'' was a literary journal that was founded and edited in Rome by Marguerite Caetani (Princess di Bassiano) from 1948 to 1960. History and profile ''Botteghe Oscure'' was established in 1948. The magazine was named after Rome� ...

'', ''

Partisan Review ''Partisan Review'' (''PR'') was a left-wing small-circulation quarterly "little magazine" dealing with literature, politics, and cultural commentary published in New York City. The magazine was launched in 1934 by the Communist Party USA–affi ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'', ''

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, ...

'' and '' The Hudson Review''. In 1957, five sections from a sequence entitled "Heart's Needle" were included in

Hall In architecture, a hall is a relatively large space enclosed by a roof and walls. In the Iron Age and the Early Middle Ages in northern Europe, a mead hall was where a lord and his retainers ate and also slept. Later in the Middle Ages, the gre ...

Pack Pack or packs may refer to: Music * Packs (band), a Canadian indie rock band * ''Packs'' (album), by Your Old Droog * ''Packs'', a Berner album Places * Pack, Styria, defunct Austrian municipality * Pack, Missouri, United States (US) * ...

and

Simpson's The Robert Simpson Company Limited, commonly known as Simpson's until 1972, then as Simpsons, and in Quebec sometimes as Simpson, was a Canadian department store chain that had its earliest roots in a store opened in 1858 by Robert Simpson. I ...

anthology, ''New Poets of England and America''. By the time ''Heart's Needle'' was published as a book, in 1959, Snodgrass had won ''The Hudson Review'' Fellowship in Poetry and an Ingram Merrill Foundation Poetry Prize. ''Heart's Needle'' earned him a citation from the

Poetry Society of America Poetry (from the Greek word '' poiesis'', "making") is a form of literary art that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, literal or surface-level meanings. Any partic ...

, a grant from the National Institute of Arts, and the 1960

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 ...

in Poetry. It has been said that ''Heart's Needle'' inaugurated

confessional poetry Confessional poetry or "Confessionalism" is a style of poetry that emerged in the United States during the late 1950s and early 1960s. It is sometimes classified as a form of Postmodernism. It has been described as poetry of the personal or "I", ...

. Snodgrass disliked the term.. His confessional work was to have a profound effect on many of his contemporaries, including

. The label of confessional poet affected his work and its reception (he was perceived by some to have "wrecked his career" ). His later work moved in new directions: ''The Führer Bunker'' cycle of poems, monologues by

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

and his circle in the closing days of the

Third Reich Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a totalitarian dictat ...

, began appearing as a "poem in progress" in 1977 and was finally completed in 1995. An adaptation of these for the stage was performed in the 1980s. Snodgrass satirized his former confessional style in a series of poems written in response to DeLoss McGraw's

surrealistic Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

paintings, a collaboration that eventually grew into a partnership.

Bibliography

Poetry *

1959 Events January * January 1 – Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 – Soviet lunar probe Luna 1 is the first human-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reaches the ...

: ''Heart's Needle'' *

1968 Events January–February * January 1968, January – The I'm Backing Britain, I'm Backing Britain campaign starts spontaneously. * January 5 – Prague Spring: Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Cze ...

: ''After Experience: Poems and Translations'' *

: ''Leaving the Motel'' *

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...

: ''Remains'' *

1977 Events January * January 8 – 1977 Moscow bombings, Three bombs explode in Moscow within 37 minutes, killing seven. The bombings are attributed to an Armenian separatist group. * January 10 – Mount Nyiragongo erupts in eastern Zaire (no ...

: ''The Führer Bunker: A Cycle of Poems in Progress'' *

1979 Events January * January 1 ** United Nations Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim heralds the start of the ''International Year of the Child''. Many musicians donate to the ''Music for UNICEF Concert'' fund, among them ABBA, who write the song ...

: ''If Birds Build with Your Hair'' *

1981 Events January * January 1 ** Greece enters the European Economic Community, predecessor of the European Union. ** Palau becomes a self-governing territory. * January 6 – A funeral service is held in West Germany for Nazi Grand Admiral ...

: ''These Trees Stand'' *

1982 Events January * January 1 – In Malaysia and Singapore, clocks are adjusted to the same time zone, UTC+8 (GMT+8.00). * January 13 – Air Florida Flight 90 crashes shortly after takeoff into the 14th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C. ...

: ''Heinrich Himmler'' *

1983 1983 saw both the official beginning of the Internet and the first mobile cellular telephone call. Events January * January 1 – The migration of the ARPANET to TCP/IP is officially completed (this is considered to be the beginning of the ...

: ''The Boy Made of Meat'' *

: ''Magda Goebbels'' *

1984 Events January * January 1 – The Bornean Sultanate of Brunei gains full independence from the United Kingdom, having become a British protectorate in 1888. * January 7 – Brunei becomes the sixth member of the Association of Southeas ...

: ''D. D. Byrde Callying Jennie Wrenn'' *

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

: ''The Kinder Capers'' *

: ''A Locked House'' *

1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

: ''Selected Poems: 1957–1987'' *

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

: ''W. D.'s Midnight Carnival'' *

1989 1989 was a turning point in political history with the "Revolutions of 1989" which ended communism in Eastern Bloc of Europe, starting in Poland and Hungary, with experiments in power-sharing coming to a head with the opening of the Berlin W ...

: ''The Death of Cock Robin'' *

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

: ''Each in His Season'' *

1995 1995 was designated as: * United Nations Year for Tolerance * World Year of Peoples' Commemoration of the Victims of the Second World War This was the first year that the Internet was entirely privatized, with the United States government ...

: ''The Führer Bunker: The Complete Cycle'' *

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

: ''Not for Specialists: New and Selected Poems'' Prose * ''In Radical Pursuit: Critical Essays and Lectures'' (1975) * ''After-images: Autobiographical Sketches'' (1999) * ''To Sound Like Yourself: Essays on Poetry'' (2002) Drama *''The Führer Bunker'' (1981) Anthologies * ''Gallows Song'' (1967) * ''Six Troubadour Songs'' (1977) * ''Traditional Hungarian Songs'' (1978) * ''Six Minnesinger Songs'' (1983) * ''The Four Seasons'' (1984) * ''Five Romanian Ballads, Cartea Romaneasca'' (1993) * ''Selected Translations'' (1998) * ''De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong'' (2001)

Sources

*''W. D. Snodgrass'' (Twayne's United States authors series; TUSAS 316) by Paul L. Gaston *''The Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass: Everything Human (Under Discussion)'' by Stephen Haven (Editor) *''No music, no poem: Interviews with W.R. Moses & W. D. Snodgrass'' by Roy Scheele *''W. D. Snodgrass: A Bibliography by William White'' *''Tuned and Under Tension: The Recent Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass'' (edited by Philip Raisor)limited preview to p. 29
/ref> *''W. D. Snodgrass and The Führer bunker: an interview'', Gaston *''The First Confessionalist'', an interview with Ernest Hilbert in '' Contemporary Poetry Review'

*''An Examination of "Discourses on the apostolical succession"'', by W. D. Snodgrass, D.D by William Johnson *''American Writers: A Collection of Literary Biographies, Supplement Vi, Don Delillo to W. D. Snodgrass'', edited by

Jay Parini Jay Parini (born April 2, 1948) is an American writer and academic. He is known for novels, poetry, biography, screenplays and criticism. He has published novels about Leo Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin, Paul the Apostle, Herman Melville, and a noveli ...

*''Everything Human: On the Poetry of W. D. Snodgrass'' by Richard Howard

References

External links

A note on W D Snodgrass
*
Ernest Hilbert interview with W. D. Snodgrass.W. D. Snodgrass
video a
Web of Stories

Michael Foldes, W. D. Snodgrass, Memoir, Ragazine.CC a

{{DEFAULTSORT:Snodgrass, William De Witt 1926 births 2009 deaths American male poets Formalist poets Cornell University faculty Deaths from lung cancer in New York (state) Geneva College alumni Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners University of Iowa alumni Writers from Pittsburgh Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni Translators to English 20th-century American poets 20th-century American translators 20th-century American male writers United States Navy personnel of World War II