William Meredith
Born	William Morris Meredith Jr. (1919-01-09)January 9, 1919 New York City, U.S.
Died	May 30, 2007(2007-05-30) (aged 88) New London, Connecticut, U.S.
Occupation	Author poet professor
Education	Princeton University (BA)
Notable awards	National Book Award (1997) Pulitzer Prize (1988)
Partner	Richard Harteis (1970s–2007)

William Morris Meredith Jr. (January 9, 1919 – May 30, 2007) was an American poet and educator. He wasPoet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1978 to 1980,^[1] and the recipient of the 1988Pulitzer Prize for Poetry.

Meredith was born in New York City to William Morris Meredith Sr. and Nelley Keyser. He attendedLenox School in Massachusetts, graduating in 1936.^[2] He began writing while a college student atPrinceton University. He graduatedmagna cum laude from Princeton in 1940, having written a senior thesis onRobert Frost. His first volume of poetry,Love Letter from an Impossible Land, appeared in 1944.Archibald MacLeish selected it for publication as part of theYale Series of Younger Poets Competition.

Meredith worked briefly for theNew York Times as a copy boy and reporter before joining theUnited States Army Air Force in 1941. The next year, he transferred to theUnited States Navy as a carrier pilot. He served in theAleutian Islands andPacific Theater and reached the rank of lieutenant. He continued his service in theUnited States Navy Reserve until 1952, when he reenlisted to serve in theKorean War. He ultimately attained the rank of lieutenant commander and was awarded twoAir Medals.^[2]

From 1946 to 1950, Meredith had several teaching appointments atPrinceton University: Instructor in English, Woodrow Wilson Fellow in Writing, and Resident Fellow in Creative Writing. This was followed by an appointment as associate professor at theUniversity of Hawaii (1950–51). After the Korean War he was hired as an associate professor of English atConnecticut College, where he taught until 1983. Meredith was promoted to professor in 1965. He settled on a farm inUncasville, where he continued to write poetry and developed his talents as an arborist, planting and nurturing rare trees on the banks of theThames. During this period, he also taught for several years in the summer graduate program atMiddlebury College'sBread Loaf School of English. He was also an instructor at theBread Loaf Writers' Conference from 1964 to 1971.^[2]

From 1964 to 1987, Meredith served as Chancellor of theAcademy of American Poets. From 1978 to 1980, he was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, the position which in 1985 became thePoet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. He has the distinction of being the first gay poet to receive this honor.^{[citation needed]}

In 1983, Meredith suffered a stroke and was immobilized for two years. The stroke causedexpressive aphasia, which affected his ability to produce language. Meredith ended his teaching career and could not write poetry during this period. He regained many of his language skills after intensive therapy and traveling to Britain for treatment.^{[citation needed]}

In 1988, Meredith was awarded thePulitzer Prize for Poetry^[3] and aLos Angeles Times Book Award forPartial Accounts: New and Selected Poems. In 1997, he won theNational Book Award for Poetry forEffort at Speech.^[4][5] Meredith also received aGuggenheim Foundation fellowship, the Harriet Monroe Memorial Prize, the Carl Sandburg Award, and the International Vaptsarov Prize in Poetry.

One of the most complete collections of Meredith's work, "The William Meredith Papers," is housed at Connecticut College, where he taught. The collection documents his life and work as of one of Connecticut College's most eminent faculty members and one of the nation's most respected poets. The collection contains letters, drafts, speeches, and papers relating to many organizations with which Meredith was associated, such as the Library of Congress, the Academy of American Poets, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Connecticut College, Princeton University, Yaddo, the National Institute of Arts and Letters, the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, cultural and governmental agencies in Bulgaria, and the Estate of W. H. Auden.^{[citation needed]}

Connecticut College acquired the papers in 1994. They are in the Special Collections department of the Charles E. Shain Library. One may consult the collection by arrangement with the Special Collections Librarian. The library also has a virtually complete collection of Meredith's published work, including many of the anthologies and issues of literary journals in which individual poems were published or reprinted. The book collection also includes presentation copies ofRobert Frost's poetry that Frost gave Meredith, several with inscriptions and holograph poems.^{[citation needed]}

A longtime admirer ofW. B. Yeats, Meredith fulfilled his ambition to visit Yeats's spiritual homeplace ofSligo, Ireland, in 2006. While there he also attended the Yeats International Summer School, which attracts many academics and admirers of Yeats to Sligo every summer.^{[citation needed]}

Meredith died inNew London, Connecticut, near his home inMontville, where he lived with his partner of 36 years, the poet and fiction writer Richard Harteis.^[6][7] A film about his life,Marathon, premiered on November 19, 2008, in Mystic, Connecticut.^[8]

• Love Letter from an Impossible Land (Yale University Press, 1944)
• Ships and Other Figures (Princeton University Press, 1948)
• The Open Sea and Other Poems (Alfred A. Knopf, 1957)
• The Wreck of the Thresher and Other Poems (Knopf, 1964) —finalist for the National Book Award^[9]
• Winter Verse (privately printed, 1964)
• Earth Walk: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, 1970)
• Hazard the Painter (Knopf, 1975)ISBN 978-0-394-49634-4
• The Cheer (Knopf, 1980)
• Partial Accounts: New and Selected Poems (Knopf, 1987)ISBN 978-0-394-75191-7 —winner of the Pulitzer Prize^[3]
• Effort at Speech: New and Selected Poems. Northwestern University Press. 1997.ISBN 978-0-8101-5070-6.William Meredith. —winner of the National Book Award^[4]

• Reasons for Poetry, and The Reason for Criticism (1982)^[10]
• Poems Are Hard to Read, University of Michigan Press, 1991,ISBN 978-0-472-09427-1

• Guillaume Apollinaire,Alcools: Poems, 1898-1913, Translator (Doubleday, 1964)
• Poets of Bulgaria, Editor (Unicorn Press, 1985)ISBN 978-0-87775-190-8

• 1988Pulitzer Prize for Poetry –Partial Accounts^[3]
• 1997National Book Award for Poetry –Effort at Speech^[4]
• 1975Guggenheim Fellowship

• William Meredith papers at Washington University in St. Louis
• William Meredith and Robert Drew papers atPrinceton University Library Special Collections

• William Meredith Foundation
• marathon the movie
• William Meredith profile and selected works atAcademy of American Poets
• William Meredith pageArchived November 29, 2013, at theWayback Machine,Connecticut College Library, Department of Special Collections
• Edward Hirsch (Spring 1985)."William Meredith, The Art of Poetry No. 34".The Paris Review. Spring 1985 (95).
• William Meredith atLibrary of Congress Authorities — with 71 catalog records
• Poetry Foundation biography page

• 1919 births
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• 20th-century American poets
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• LGBTQ people from New York (state)
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters
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• Princeton University alumni
• Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners
• Recipients of the Air Medal
• Yale Younger Poets winners
• Princeton University faculty
• Connecticut College faculty
• University of Hawaiʻi faculty
• American male poets
• United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II
• United States Naval Aviators
• United States Navy pilots of World War II
• United States Navy personnel of the Korean War
• American Korean War pilots
• 20th-century American naval officers
• Middlebury College faculty
• 20th-century American translators
• 20th-century American male writers
• 20th-century American LGBTQ people

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