John Hollander | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1929-10-28)October 28, 1929 |
| Died | August 17, 2013(2013-08-17) (aged 83) |
| Alma mater | Columbia University (BA,MA) Indiana University (PhD) |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Spouse | Anne Loesser; Natalie Charkow |
| Children | Martha Hollander, Elizabeth Hollander |
John Hollander (October 28, 1929 – August 17, 2013) was an American poet and literary critic.[1] At the time of his death, he wasSterling Professor Emeritus of English atYale University, having previously taught atConnecticut College,Hunter College, andCUNY Graduate Center.
John Hollander was born inManhattan to Muriel (Kornfeld) and Franklin Hollander,[2] Jewish immigrant parents. He was the elder brother of Michael Hollander (1934–2015), a distinguished professor of architecture at Pratt Institute. He attended theBronx High School of Science[3] and thenColumbia College of Columbia University, where he studied underMark Van Doren andLionel Trilling and overlapped withAllen Ginsberg (Hollander's poetic mentor),[4]Jason Epstein,Richard Howard,Robert Gottlieb,Roone Arledge,Max Frankel,Louis Simpson andSteven Marcus. At Columbia, he joined theBoar's Head Society.[5] After graduating, he supported himself for a while by writing liner notes for classical music albums before returning to obtain an MA in literature and then a PhD fromIndiana University.[6]
Hollander resided inWoodbridge, Connecticut, where he served as a judge for several high-school recitation contests. He said he enjoyed working with students on their poetry and teaching it. With his ex-wife,Anne Loesser (daughter of pianistArthur Loesser;[7] married 1953–77), he was the father of writerMartha Hollander and uncle of the songwriterSam Hollander. He married Natalie Charkow in 1981.
Hollander died atBranford, Connecticut, on August 17, 2013, at the age of 83.[8]
Hollander stressed the importance of hearing poems out loud: "A good poem satisfies the ear. It creates a story or picture that grabs you, informs you and entertains you".[9] The poet needs to be aware of the "sound of sense; the music of speech".[10] To Hollander, verse was a kind of music in words, and he spoke eloquently about their connection with the human voice.[4]
Hollander was also known for his translations fromYiddish.He usually wrote his poems on a computer, but if inspiration struck him, he offered that, "I've been known to start poems on napkins and scraps of paper, too."[9]
Hollander was considered to have technical poetic powers without equal,[11] as exampled by his "Powers of Thirteen" poem, an extended sequence of 169 (13 × 13) unrhymed 13-linestanzas with 13 syllables in each line.[12] These constraints liberated rather than inhibited Hollander's imagination, giving a fusion ofmetaphors that enabled Hollander to conceive this work as "a perpetual calendar".[13] Hollander also composed poems as "graphematic"emblems (Type of Shapes, 1969) and epistolary poems (exampled inReflections on Espionage, 1976),[14] and, as a critic (inVision and Resonance: Two Senses of Poetic Form, 1975), offered telling insights into the relationship between words and music and sound in poetry, and in metrical experimentation,[15] and 'the lack of a theory of graphicprosody'.[16]
Hollander influenced poets Todd LaRoche andKarl Kirchwey, who both studied under Hollander atYale. Hollander taught Kirchwey that it was possible to build a life around the task of writing poetry.[17] Kirchwey recalled Hollander's passion:[17]'Since he is a poet himself ... he conveyed a passion for that knowledge as a source of current inspiration.'
Hollander also served in the following positions, among others: member of the board,Wesleyan University Press (1959–62); editorial assistant for poetry,Partisan Review (1959–65); and contributing editor ofHarper's Magazine (1969–71).[18] His other role was as a poetry critic.[19]
Hollander's poetry has been set to music byMilton Babbitt,Elliott Carter, and others;[20] in 2007 he collaborated with theEagles, allowing them use of his poem "An Old Fashioned Song" to create the song "No More Walks in the Wood".[21]
Karl Kirchwey, who graduated from Yale in 1979, recently became the director of creative writing at Bryn Mawr College, after having run the Unterberg Poetry Center at the 92nd Street Y for over a decade. He remembers his first two years at Yale as unfocused and unproductive.
