James Dickey | |
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| Born | James Lafayette Dickey (1923-02-02)February 2, 1923 Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. |
| Died | January 19, 1997(1997-01-19) (aged 73)[1][2] |
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| Education | Clemson University Vanderbilt University (BA,MA) |
| Period | Contemporary literature |
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| Notable awards | |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3; includingChristopher[1][2] andBronwen[1][2] |
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| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
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| Conflicts | |
| Awards | Bronze Star (5)[4] |
James Lafayette Dickey (February 2, 1923 – January 19, 1997) was an American poet, novelist, critic, and lecturer.[3] He was appointed the 18thUnited States Poet Laureate in 1966.[5] His other accolades included theNational Book Award for Poetry and aGuggenheim Fellowship.
Although acclaimed as a poet, Dickey is most widely known for his debut novelDeliverance (1970), which he adapted into theacclaimed 1972 film of the same name. He was previously a decorated veteran of theSecond World War and theKorean War, as a pilot in theUnited States Air Force’s418th Night Fighter Squadron.[4]
Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene Dickey and Maibelle Swift inAtlanta, Georgia, where he attendedNorth Fulton High School in Atlanta'sBuckhead neighborhood.[2] After graduation from North Fulton High in 1941, Dickey completed a postgraduate year atDarlington School in Rome, Georgia. Dickey asked to be dismissed from the Darlington rolls in a 1941 letter to the principal, deeming the school the most "disgusting combination of cant, hypocrisy, cruelty, class privilege and inanity I have ever since encountered at any human institution."[6]: 47–51 In 1942, he enrolled atClemson Agricultural College of South Carolina and played on the football team as a tailback. After one semester, he left school to enlist in the military. DuringWorld War II, Dickey served with theU.S. Army Air Forces, where he flew thirty-eight missions in the Pacific Theater as aP-61 Black Widow radar operator with the418th Night Fighter Squadron, an experience that influenced his work, and for which he was awarded fiveBronze Stars.[4]: 2 He later served in theU.S. Air Force during theKorean War. Between the wars, he attendedVanderbilt University, where he was elected toPhi Beta Kappa and graduatedmagna cum laude with a degree in English and philosophy (as well as minoring in astronomy) in 1949. He also received an M.A. in English from Vanderbilt in 1950.
Dickey taught as an instructor of English atRice University (then Rice Institute) inHouston, Texas in 1950 and following his second Air Force stint, from 1952 to 1954, Dickey returned to academic teaching. Dickey then quit his teaching job at theUniversity of Florida in the spring of 1956 after a group of the American Pen's Women's Society protested his reading of the poem calledThe Father's Body; he quit rather than apologize. Some critics believe that he manipulated this incident to his advantage. He became a successful copy writer for advertising agencies sellingCoca-Cola andLay's potato chips while in his free time writing some of his best poetry. He once said he embarked on his advertising career in order to "make some bucks." Dickey also said "I was selling my soul to the devil all day... and trying to buy it back at night." He was ultimately fired for shirking his work responsibilities.[7]
His first book,Into the Stone and Other Poems, was published in 1960.Drowning with Others was published in 1962, which led to aGuggenheim Fellowship (Norton Anthology, The Literature of the American South).Buckdancer's Choice (1965) earned him aNational Book Award for Poetry.[8]Among his better-known poems are "The Performance", "Cherrylog Road", "The Firebombing", "May Day Sermon", "Falling", and "For The Last Wolverine".
He published his first volume of collected poems,Poems 1957-1967 in 1967 after being named a poetry consultant for theLibrary of Congress. This publication represents Dickey's best-known poetry. After serving as a visiting lecturer at several institutions from 1963 to 1968 (includingReed College,California State University, Northridge, theUniversity of Wisconsin–Madison, theUniversity of Wisconsin–Milwaukee,Washington University in St. Louis and theGeorgia Institute of Technology), Dickey returned to academia in earnest in 1969 as a professor of English and writer-in-residence at theUniversity of South Carolina, a position he held for the remainder of his life. It was there that he was also inducted intoOmicron Delta Kappa, the National Leadership Honor Society, in 1970.
Dickey wrote the poemThe Moon Ground forLife magazine in celebration of theApollo 11 Moon landing. His reading of it was broadcast onABC television on July 20, 1969.[9]
His popularity exploded after thefilm version of his novelDeliverance was released in 1972. Dickey wrote the screenplay and had a cameo in the film as a sheriff.
On January 20, 1977, Dickey was invited to read his poemThe Strength of Fields[10]: 378-379 at theinauguration of Jimmy Carter.
In November 1948 Dickey married Maxine Syerson, and three years later they had their first son,Christopher; a second son, Kevin, was born in 1958.
Christopher Dickey was a novelist and journalist, providing coverage from the Middle East forNewsweek. In 1998, Christopher wrote a book about his father and Christopher's own sometimes troubled relationship with him, titledSummer of Deliverance. Christopher died in July 2020.[11]
Kevin Dickey is aninterventional radiologist and lives inWinston-Salem, NC.
Two months after Maxine died in 1976, Dickey married one of his students, Deborah Dodson.[12][13] Their daughter,Bronwen, was born in 1981. Bronwen is an author, journalist, and lecturer. Her first book,Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon,[14] was published in 2016.
Dickey died on January 19, 1997, aged 73, six days after his last class at theUniversity of South Carolina, where from 1968 he taught as poet in residence. Dickey spent his last years in and out of hospitals, afflicted with severealcoholism,[12]jaundice and laterpulmonary fibrosis.
Mr. Dickey's first wife, Maxine, died in 1976, and two months later he married Deborah Dodson, who was one of his students. He is survived by his wife; two sons, Kevin and Christopher, from his first marriage, and a daughter, Bronwen Elaine.
During World War II, Dickey flew more than 100 combat missions in the Pacific. He later reenlisted to fly in the Korean War.
Dickey's entrance into World War II immersed him in that element which would transfix his imagination. He was a P-61 navigator, part of the 418th Night Fighter Squadron stationed in the Philippine Islands, then in the process of being turned from a defensive unit into a squadron whose sorties would be primarily offensive, flying intruder missions to bomb and strafe
James Dickey attempted a similar balancing act between writing and advertising, only he flagrantly deceived his bosses in order to work on his poetry in the office (and eventually got fired for his obvious disregard for his advertising duties).
We talked at length about what it was like to be the poet and novelist James Dickey's son and about the summer he was on the film set with Burt Reynolds when they filmed Deliverance, which his father wrote. He had just written his memoir Summer of Deliverance and the stories were raw, and he was honest about the pain of his father's genius and his mother's demons.
Christopher Dickey watched his father and his mother sink into deep alcoholism, watched the enormous talents of the poet dissipate, watched his mother die of complications from cirrhosis and his father marry, in haste, one of his young students, who later became addicted to narcotics.
In what might be called Dickey's second life, he's the husband of a 35-year-old former student, Deborah Dodson Dickey, called Debba, who is nearly as tall as he, and he is 6 feet 3. He married her in 1976, two months and two days after the death of his first wife. They have a little girl named Bronwen, who is 6.
