Amy Clampitt
Born	(1920-06-15)June 15, 1920
Died	September 10, 1994(1994-09-10) (aged 74)
Alma mater	Grinnell College
Occupations	Poet author

Amy Clampitt (June 15, 1920 – September 10, 1994) was anAmerican poet and author.^[1]

Clampitt was born on June 15, 1920, ofQuaker parents, and brought up inNew Providence, Iowa. At nearbyGrinnell College and later in theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters she began a study ofEnglish literature that eventually led her to poetry. Clampitt graduated with honors in English from Grinnell College in 1941,^[2] and from that time on lived mainly in New York City. To support herself, she worked as a secretary at theOxford University Press, areference librarian at theAudubon Society, and a freelance editor.^[3]

Not until the mid-1960s, when Clampitt was in her forties, did she return to writing poetry. Her first poem was published byThe 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, includingWhat the Light Was Like (1985),Archaic Figure (1987), andWestward (1990), the latter of which was selected by criticHarold Bloom for inclusion in hisWestern Canon.^[4] 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 theCollege of William and Mary,Smith College, andAmherst 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 inLenox, Massachusetts at Clampitt’s former home.^[5][6]

Clampitt was the recipient of a 1982Guggenheim Fellowship, aMacArthur Fellowship (1992),^[7] and she was a member of theAmerican Academy of Arts and Letters and theAmerican Academy of Poets.

• Multitudes, Multitudes (Washington Street Press, 1973).
• The Isthmus (1981).^[8]
• 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)

• 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.

• Willard Spiegelman,Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt, Knopf, 2023.^[9][10]

• 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 guideArchived March 26, 2018, at theWayback Machine
• Collection on Amy Clampitt, 1938-1998 SMU
• Amy Clampitt's Papers are housed at University of Iowa Libraries Special Collections & Archives

• 1920 births
• 1994 deaths
• 20th-century American poets
• American women poets
• Amherst College faculty
• College of William & Mary faculty
• Grinnell College alumni
• MacArthur Fellows
• Smith College faculty
• 20th-century American women writers
• Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

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