1971-1973

Josephine Jacobsen

Jacobsen (1908-2003) was born in Ontario, Canada. Her first poem was published when she was 11 years old. Over the course of her career, she published 10 poetry collections as well as several prose works and short story collections. Jacobsen received the Shelley Memorial Award in 1994, and in 1997 she was awarded the Robert Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she served as vice president of the Poetry Society of America, on the poetry committee of Folger Library, and on the literature panel for the National Endowment of the Arts.

1973-1974

Daniel Hoffman

Hoffman (1923-2013) was born in New York City and earned his BA, MA, and PhD from Columbia University. He published his first collection of poetry, An Armada of Thirty Whales, in 1954 to critical acclaim, and in 1985 was a National Book Award finalist for Brotherly Love. Hoffman’s other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities, as well as the 2005 Arthur Rense Poetry Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He taught at Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania.

1974-1976

Stanley Kunitz

Kunitz (1905-2006) was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, and received his BA and MA from Harvard University. He is the author of 12 books of poetry, including Selected Poems, 1928-1958, which won the 1959 Pulitzer Prize, and Passing Through: The Later Poems, New and Selected, which won the 1995 National Book Award. Kunitz also received the Bollingen Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, the Robert Frost Medal, Harvard’s Centennial Medal, and the National Medal of the Arts. He taught for many years in the graduate writing program at Columbia University, and founded the Poets House in New York City and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts. Kunitz served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice: once from 1974 to 1975, and again from 2000-2001.

1976-1978

Robert Hayden

Hayden (1913-1980) was born in Detroit. He attended the University of Michigan, where he studied under W. H. Auden. He published his first poetry collection, Heart-Shape in the Dust, in 1940, and went on to publish seven subsequent collections. Much of Hayden’s poetry stemmed from his extensive study of American and black history. In 1966, his book Ballad of Remembrance was awarded the grand prize for poetry at the First World Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar, Senegal. Hayden taught for 23 years at Fisk University before returning to Michigan in 1969 to complete his teaching career. He was the first African American to be appointed Consultant in Poetry.

1978-1980

William Meredith

Meredith (1919-2007) was born in New York City and studied at Princeton University. He served as a Naval pilot during World War II and the Korean War before embarking on his poetry career. He is the author of nine poetry collections, including Partial Accounts, winner of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize, and Effort at Speech, which won the 1997 National Book Award. Meredith taught briefly at Princeton University and Middlebury College, and was an associate professor of English at Connecticut College from 1955 to 1983.

Top