David Ferry (born March 5, 1924) is an American poet, translator, and educator. He has published eight collections of his poetry and a volume of literary criticism. He won the
National Book Award for Poetry
The National Book Award for Poetry is one of five annual National Book Awards, which are given by the National Book Foundation to recognize outstanding literary work by US citizens. They are awards "by writers to writers".
for his 2012 collection ''Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations''.
Life
Ferry was born in
Orange, New Jersey
The City of Orange is a township in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2010 U.S. census, the township's population was 30,134, reflecting a decline of 2,734 (−8.3%) from the 32,868 counted in 2000.
Orange was original ...
in March 1924, and grew up and attended
Columbia High School Columbia High School may refer to:
*Columbia High School (Huntsville, Alabama)
*Columbia High School (Georgia)
*Columbia High School (Florida)
*Columbia High School (Idaho)
*Columbia High School (Illinois)
*Columbia High School (Mississippi), a Mis ...
amid the “wild hills” of suburban
Maplewood, New Jersey
Maplewood is a township in Essex County in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The township is an inner-ring suburban bedroom community of New York City in the New York metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States census, the township's populatio ...
.
His undergraduate education at
Amherst College
Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...
was interrupted by his service in the United States Army Air Force during World War II.
He ultimately received his B.A. from Amherst in 1946. He went on to earn his Ph.D. from
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
, and it was during his graduate studies that he published his first poems in ''
The Kenyon Review
''The Kenyon Review'' is a literary magazine based in Gambier, Ohio, US, home of Kenyon College. ''The Review'' was founded in 1939 by John Crowe Ransom, critic and professor of English at Kenyon College, who served as its editor until 1959. ' ...
''.
From 1952 until his retirement in 1989, Ferry taught at
Wellesley College
Wellesley College is a private women's liberal arts college in Wellesley, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1870 by Henry and Pauline Durant as a female seminary, it is a member of the original Seven Sisters Colleges, an unofficial g ...
where he was, for many years, the chairman of the English Department. He now holds the title Sophie Chantal Hart Professor Emeritus of English at Wellesley. He has also taught writing at
Boston University
Boston University (BU) is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. The university is nonsectarian, but has a historical affiliation with the United Methodist Church. It was founded in 1839 by Methodists with its original campu ...
, as well as
Suffolk University
Suffolk University is a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. With 7,560 students (includes all campuses, 7,379 at the Boston location alone), it is the eighth-largest university in metropolitan Boston. It was founded as a l ...
, as a distinguished scholar. Ferry was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...
in 1998, and he is a fellow of the
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreac ...
.
In 1958, Ferry married the distinguished literary scholar Anne Ferry (died 2006), they had two children, Elizabeth, an anthropologist, and Stephen, a photojournalist.
Before moving to his current home in
Brookline, Massachusetts
Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...
, Ferry lived across the Charles River in Cambridge, in the house where 19th century journalist and women's rights advocate
Margaret Fuller
Sarah Margaret Fuller (May 23, 1810 – July 19, 1850), sometimes referred to as Margaret Fuller Ossoli, was an American journalist, editor, critic, translator, and women's rights advocate associated with the American transcendentalism movemen ...
lived before she joined the
Brook Farm
Brook Farm, also called the Brook Farm Institute of Agriculture and EducationFelton, 124 or the Brook Farm Association for Industry and Education,Rose, 140 was a utopian experiment in communal living in the United States in the 1840s. It was f ...
community.
Honors and awards
In 2000, Ferry's book of new and selected poems and translations, entitled ''Of No Country I Know'', received the
Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach ...
from the Academy of American Poets and the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress (for the best work of poetry for the previous two years).
He is the author of a critically praised verse rendering of the Mesopotamian
Epic of Gilgamesh
The ''Epic of Gilgamesh'' () is an epic poetry, epic poem from ancient Mesopotamia, and is regarded as the earliest surviving notable literature and the second oldest religious text, after the Pyramid Texts. The literary history of Gilgamesh ...
.
The poet
W. S. Merwin
William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thema ...
has described Ferry's work as having an "assured quiet tone" that communicates "complexities of feeling with unfailing proportion and grace."
Ferry is also a recipient of the
Harold Morton Landon Translation Award
The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry. The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach ...
.
In 2011, Ferry was awarded the
Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
The Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize is awarded annually by The Poetry Foundation, which also publishes Poetry (magazine), ''Poetry'' magazine. The prize was established in 1986 by Ruth Lilly. It honors a living U.S. poet whose "lifetime accomplishments war ...
.
In 2012, Ferry was awarded the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors.
The Nat ...
for Poetry for his book ''Bewilderment'' (University of Chicago Press). ''Bewilderment'' was a finalist for the
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".reviewed at length by the academic and poet
April Bernard
April Bernard (born 1956) is an American poet. She was born and raised in New England, and graduated from Harvard University. She has worked as a senior editor at ''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair'', ''Premiere (magazine), Premiere'', and Man ...
in the
New York Review of Books
New is an adjective referring to something recently made, discovered, or created.
New or NEW may refer to:
Music
* New, singer of K-pop group The Boyz
Albums and EPs
* ''New'' (album), by Paul McCartney, 2013
* ''New'' (EP), by Regurgitator, ...
. She considered that, "he has some sort of uncanny connection to the great poet .e. Virgil , and suggested his translation was superior to those of
John Dryden
''
John Dryden (; – ) was an English poet, literary critic, translator, and playwright who in 1668 was appointed England's first Poet Laureate.
He is seen as dominating the literary life of Restoration England to such a point that the per ...
,
Robert Fitzgerald
Robert Stuart Fitzgerald (; 12 October 1910 – 16 January 1985) was an American poet, literary critic and translator whose renderings of the Greek classics "became standard works for a generation of scholars and students".Mitgang, Herbert (Janua ...
and
Robert Fagles
Robert Fagles (; September 11, 1933 – March 26, 2008) was an American professor, poet, and academic, best known for his many translations of ancient Greek and Roman classics, especially his acclaimed translations of the epic poems of Homer. ...
, because of its combination of vivid precision, metrical force, and cumulative effect. Writing in the TLS, classicist Richard Jenkyns called Ferry's Aeneid "the best modern version...both for its loyalty to the original and for its naturalness in itself."Richard Jenkyns, "In full flow," ''TLS'', February 16, 2018, 15.
List of works
* ''The Limits of Mortality: An Essay on Wordsworth's Major Poems'' Wesleyan University Press, 1959; Literary Licensing, LLC, 2011,
* ''On the Way to the Island'' Wesleyan University Press, 1960,
*
* ''Gilgamesh: A New Rendering in English Verse'' Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1992,
*
*
* ''The Eclogues of Virgil'' Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000,
*
* ''The Georgics of Virgil'' (2005)
* ''On This Side of the River: Selected Poems,'' Between the Lines, 2012,
*
* ''Virgil, The Aeneid''. University of Chicago Press. 2017.