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1990-1991
Mark Strand
(1934- ) Strand, born on Prince Edward Island, Canada, received a BA from Antioch College, a BFA from Yale and an MA from the University of Iowa. He is the author of 10 books of poems, including “Blizzard of One,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1999. He has received many honors, including a MacArthur fellowship and three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts. Strand also has published a collection of stories, “Mr. and Mrs. Baby,” many translations and several anthologies. He currently teaches in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago.
1991-1992
Joseph Brodsky
(1940-1996) Brodsky, born in Leningrad, left school at age 15 and worked at many occupations, including a milling machine operator and a geologist-prospector. He began writing poetry at age 18 and studied with Russian poet Anna Akhmatova. After Brodsky was exiled in 1972, he came to the United States. He wrote nine volumes of poetry, including the 1980 acclaimed collection “A Part of Speech.” His 1986 collection of essays, “Less Than One,” won the National Book Critic’s Award for criticism. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1987.
1992-1993
Mona Van Duyn
(1921-2004) Van Duyn, born in Waterloo, Iowa, received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Northern Iowa and a master’s from the University of Iowa. There were six women Consultants in Poetry, but Van Duyn was the first woman Poet Laureate. From 1947-67, she co-edited and co-published Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature. Her poetry collection, “Near Changes,” earned her the 1991 Pulitzer Prize. Other honors include the 1971 National Book Award for “To See, To Take,” and the 1971 Bollingen Prize.
1993-1995
Rita Dove
(1952- ) Dove, born in Akron, Ohio, was a 1970 Presidential Scholar as one of the 100 best high school graduates in the United States that year. She received a bachelor’s from Miami University of Ohio and a master’s from the University of Iowa. Her poetry collection, “Thomas and Beulah,” won the 1987 Pulitzer Prize. She also wrote “Grace Notes” (1989), a volume of short stories, and “Through the Ivory Gate” (1992), a novel. Her most recent book of poetry is “American Smooth” (2004). Dove is a professor of English at the University of Virginia.
1995-1997
Robert Hass
(1941- ) Hass was born in San Francisco. He received his B.A. from St. Mary’s College in California and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. His first collection of poetry, “Field Guide” (1973), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. His collection of essays, “Twentieth Century Pleasures,” won the National Book Critics Award in 1985. Hass also has helped poet Czeslaw Milosz translate his works. Hass teaches at the University of California at Berkeley.
1997-2000
Robert Pinsky
(1940- ) Pinsky, born in New Jersey, is the first Poet Laureate to serve an unprecedented three consecutive terms. He attended Rutgers College and Stanford University, where he held a Stegner Fellowship in Creative Writing. He is the author of six books of poetry, including “Jersey Rain” (2000) and “The Figured Wheel: New and Collected Poems 1966-1996.” In 1994, his translation of Dante’s “Inferno” became a Book-of-the-Month Club selection and a bestseller. Pinsky is poetry editor of Slate, an Internet magazine, and a teacher in the creative writing program at Boston University.
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1999-2000
Special Bicentennial Consultants, 1999-2000: Rita Dove, Louise Glück, and W.S. Merwin
Rita Dove: Dove also served as Poet Laureate from 1993-95.
Louise Glück: (1943- ) Glück was born in New York City and grew up on Long Island. She attended Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University. She is the author of nine books of poetry, including “The Wild Iris,” which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1993. Her poetry book “Ararat” (1990) received the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry. Other honors include the Bollingen Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations. She teaches at Williams College.
W. S. Merwin: (1927- ) Merwin was born in New York City and educated at Princeton University. He traveled extensively in France, Portugal and England. He is the author of more than 15 books of poetry. “A Mask for Janus,” his first book in 1952, was selected for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. “The Carrier of Ladders” won the 1971 Pulitzer Prize. He also published nearly 20 books of translation, numerous plays and four books of prose. He lives in Hawaii.