Frank Bidart (born May 27, 1939) is an American academic and poet, and a winner of the

Pulitzer Prize for Poetry The Pulitzer Prize for Poetry is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes awarded annually for Letters, Drama, and Music. It was first presented in 1922, and is given for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, published ...

Biography

Bidart is a native of California and considered a career in acting or directing when he was young. In 1957, he began to study at the University of California at Riverside, where he was introduced to writers such as T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound and started to look at poetry as a career path. He then went on to

Harvard 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 ...

, where he was a student and friend of

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the '' Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects ...

and

Elizabeth Bishop Elizabeth Bishop (February 8, 1911 – October 6, 1979) was an American poet and short-story writer. She was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 1949 to 1950, the Pulitzer Prize winner for Poetry in 1956, the National Book Awar ...

. He began studying with Lowell and Reuben Brower in 1962. He has been an English professor 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 ...

since 1972, and has taught at nearby

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , p ...

. He lives in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

, and he is gay. In his early work, he was noted for his dramatic monologue poems like " Ellen West," which Bidart wrote from the point of view of a woman with an

eating disorder An eating disorder is a mental disorder defined by abnormal eating behaviors that negatively affect a person's physical or mental health. Only one eating disorder can be diagnosed at a given time. Types of eating disorders include binge eating d ...

, and "Herbert White," which he wrote from the point of view of a

psychopath Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been ...

. He has also written openly about his family in the style of confessional poetry. He co-edited the ''Collected Poems of Robert Lowell'' which was published in 2003 after years of working on the book's voluminous footnotes with his co-editor David Gewanter. Bidart was the 2007 winner of Yale University's Bollingen Prize in American Poetry. His

chapbook A chapbook is a small publication of up to about 40 pages, sometimes bound with a saddle stitch. In early modern Europe a chapbook was a type of printed street literature. Produced cheaply, chapbooks were commonly small, paper-covered bookle ...

, ''

Music Like Dirt Music is generally defined as the art of arranging sound to create some combination of form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise expressive content. Exact definitions of music vary considerably around the world, though it is an aspect ...

'', later included in the collection ''Star Dust'', was a finalist for the 2003

Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made ...

in poetry. His 2013 book ''

Metaphysical Dog ''Metaphysical Dog'' is the eighth book of collected free verse poems by American poet Frank Bidart. It was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux and won the National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards ...

'' was a finalist for the National Book Award in Poetry and won the National Book Critics Circle Award. He currently maintains a strong working relationship with actor and fellow poet

James Franco James Edward Franco (born April 19, 1978) is an American actor and filmmaker. For his role in '' 127 Hours'' (2010), he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor. Franco is known for his roles in films, such as Sam Raimi's ''Spider-M ...

, with whom he collaborated during the making of Franco's short film "Herbert White" (2010), based on Bidart's poem of the same name. In 2017, Bidart received the

Griffin Poetry Prize The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. Before 2022, the awards went to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English languag ...

Lifetime Recognition Award and the 2017

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 '' Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016''. He was awarded the 2018

for ''Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016''.

Awards and honors

* 1981

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

's first Bernard F. Conners Prize for "The War of Vaslav Nijinsky" * 1991 Lila Wallace-

Reader's Digest ''Reader's Digest'' is an American general-interest family magazine, published ten times a year. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, it is now headquartered in midtown Manhattan. The magazine was founded in 1922 by DeWitt Wallace and his wif ...

Foundation Writers' Award * 1992 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, a ...

* 1995 Morton Dauwen Zabel Award in Poetry given by the

American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

* 1997 Shelley Memorial Award of the Poetry Society of America * 2000 Wallace Stevens Award 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 outreach ...

; subsequently elected a Chancellor of the Academy (2003) * 2007 Bollingen Prize in American Poetry * 2013 National Book Critics Circle Award (Poetry), winner for ''Metaphysical Dog'' * 2013

(Poetry), finalist for ''Metaphysical Dog'' *2014

PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given biennially to an American poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature. The award is one of many PEN awards sponsored by ...

*2017

Lifetime Recognition Award *2017

in Poetry *2018

Bibliography

Poetry

* ''Golden State'' (1973) * ''The Book of the Body'' (1977) * ''The Sacrifice'' (1983) * ''In the Western Night: Collected Poems 1965–90'' (1990) * ''Desire'' (1997) received the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Prize and the 1998 Bobbitt Prize for Poetry; finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award * ''Music Like Dirt'' (

Sarabande Books Sarabande Books is an American not-for-profit literary press founded in 1994. It is headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky, with an office in New York City. Sarabande publishes contemporary poetry and nonfiction. Sarabande is a literary press who ...

, 2002), nominated for the Pulitzer Prize * '' Star Dust'' (2005), in two sections * ''Watching the Spring Festival'' (2008) * ''

'' (2013), nominated for the National Book Award in Poetry and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award * '' Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016'' (2017), winner of the National Book Award in Poetry and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry *''Against Silence'' (2021)

Other

* Editor, with David Gewanter, of Robert Lowell's ''Collected Poems'' (2003)

References

Sources

External links

Frank Bidart at FSGFamous Poets and Poems Web siteBookslut blog interview with BidartDiscussion of Bidart's "Golden State" and Diachronicity
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bidart, Frank 1939 births Poets from California Brandeis University faculty Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American gay writers Harvard University alumni Living people Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters Writers from Bakersfield, California University of California, Riverside alumni Wellesley College faculty Bollingen Prize recipients American LGBT poets LGBT people from California Chapbook writers American male poets Gay academics 20th-century American poets 21st-century American poets 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers