biography
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1879–1955)
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| biography:
| Poet and insurance executive, born in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA. He took a special course at Harvard (1897–1900) and published some poems while there. He went to New York City to work as a journalist (1900–1), but did not care for journalism and went to New York University Law School (1901–3). He practised law in New York City (1904–16), and then joined the legal staff of the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Co (1916), became a vice-president (1934), and remained there until his death. While in New York City he had come to know many of the leading writers and artists, and he published his first poems as an adult in 1914, with ‘Sunday Morning’ appearing in Poetry magazine in 1915. His verse play, ‘Three Travelers Watch a Sunrise’ (1916) won a Poetry prize and was produced by New York's Provincetown Playhouse (1917). His first collection of poetry, Harmonium (1923), sold less than 100 copies but received some acclaim from fellow poets. More collections followed throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but not until the 1950s did he begin to receive wider recognition, reflected in literary awards, publication of his essays and addresses, and tributes to him as a major modern poet. After his death his influence on poets and serious readers of poetry only increased, for they found in the meticulous language and daring metaphors of such poems as ‘The Emperor of Ice Cream’ and ‘The Man with the Blue Guitar’, decidedly difficult as they are, the creative imagination that allows humans to face the reality Stevens valued. |
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