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Amy Clampitt (June 15, 1920 – September 10, 1994) was an American poet and author. [1]
Life
Clampitt was born on June 15, 1920, of Quaker parents, and brought up in New Providence, Iowa. In the American Academy of Arts and Letters and at nearby Grinnell College she began a study of English literature that eventually led her to poetry. Clampitt graduated from Grinnell College, and from that time on lived mainly in New York City. To support herself, she worked as a secretary at the Oxford University Press, a reference librarian at the Audubon Society, and a freelance editor. [2]
Not until the mid-1960s, when Clampitt was in her forties, did she return to writing poetry. Her first poem was published by The New Yorker in 1978. In 1983, at the age of sixty-three, Clampitt published her first full-length collection, The Kingfisher. In the decade that followed, Clampitt published five books of poetry, including What the Light Was Like (1985), Archaic Figure (1987), and Westward (1990). Her last book, A Silence Opens, appeared in 1994. Clampitt also published a book of essays and several privately printed editions of her longer poems. She taught at the College of William and Mary, Smith College, and Amherst College, but it was her time spent in Manhattan, in a remote part of Maine, and on various trips to Europe, the former Soviet Union, Iowa, Wales, and England that most directly influenced her work.[ citation needed]
Clampitt died of cancer in September 1994.
An Amy Clampitt Residency was established in Lenox, Massachusetts. [3] [4]
Awards
Clampitt was the recipient of a 1982 Guggenheim Fellowship, a MacArthur Fellowship (1992), and she was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Poets.
Works
Poetry collections
- Multitudes, Multitudes (Washington Street Press, 1973).
- The Isthmus (1981). [5]
- The Summer Solstice (Sarabande Press, 1983).
- The Kingfisher (Knopf, 1983). ISBN 0-394-52840-9.
- What the Light Was Like (Knopf, 1983). ISBN 0-394-54318-1.
- Archaic Figure (Knopf, 1987). ISBN 0-394-75090-X.
- Westward (Knopf, 1990). ISBN 0-394-58455-4.
- Manhattan: An Elegy, and Other Poems (University of Iowa Center for the Book, 1990).
- A Silence Opens (Knopf, 1994). ISBN 0-679-75022-3.
- The Collected Poems of Amy Clampitt (Knopf, 1997). ISBN 0-375-70064-1.
- " A Homage to John Keats" (The Sarabande Press, 1984)
Prose
- A Homage to John Keats (Sarabande Press, 1984).
- The Essential Donne (Ecco Press, 1988). ISBN 0-88001-480-6.
- Predecessors, Et Cetera: Essays (University of Michigan Press, 1991). ISBN 0-472-06457-6.
Biography
References
- ^ Grimes, William (September 12, 1994). "Amy Clampitt, 74, Late Bloomer Who Rose to Heights of Poetry". The New York Times. Retrieved July 27, 2008.
- ^ "'Nowhere Wholly at Home'". archive.nytimes.com. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
- ^ "Poet Begins Six-Month Amy Clampitt Residency". www.iberkshires.com. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
- ^ "How One Poet's 'Genius Grant' Became A Gift To Future Generations". npr.org.
- ^ "Spiegelman". Amy Clampitt. Retrieved July 29, 2020.
- ^ "Review | The MacArthur 'genius' poet who got her first break at 58". Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
- ^ Forbes, Malcolm (February 24, 2023). "'Nothing Stays Put' Review: Amy Clampitt, Late Bloomer". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved April 6, 2023.
External links
- The Amy Clampitt Fund
- Clampitt's Academy of American Poets page
- Poetry Foundation page
- "Clampitt, Amy: Introduction" Poetry Criticism. Vol. 19, edited by Carol T. Gaffke (Thomson Gale, 1997).
- Robert E. Hosmer (Spring 1993). "Amy Clampitt, The Art of Poetry No. 45". Paris Review. Spring 1993 (126).
- Catherine Cucinella, ed., Contemporary American Women Poets: An A-Z guide
- Collection on Amy Clampitt, 1938-1998 SMU
