John Frederick Nims (November 20, 1913 in

Muskegon, Michigan Muskegon ( ') is a city in Michigan. It is the county seat of Muskegon County. Muskegon is known for fishing, sailing regattas, pleasure boating, and as a commercial and cruise ship port. It is a popular vacation destination because of the expans ...

– January 13, 1999, aged 85, in

Chicago, Illinois (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

) was an American poet and academic.

Life

He graduated from

DePaul University DePaul University is a private, Catholic research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th-century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul. In 1998, it became the largest Ca ...

University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...

with an M.A., and from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

with a Ph.D. in 1945. He published reviews of the works by Robert Lowell and

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 ...

. He taught English at

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 high ...

, the

University of Florence The University of Florence (Italian: ''Università degli Studi di Firenze'', UniFI) is an Italian public research university located in Florence, Italy. It comprises 12 schools and has around 50,000 students enrolled. History The first universi ...

, the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public university, public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park (Toronto), Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 ...

Williams College Williams College is a private liberal arts college in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It was established as a men's college in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams, a colonist from the Province of Massachusetts Bay who was kill ...

University of Missouri The University of Missouri (Mizzou, MU, or Missouri) is a public land-grant research university in Columbia, Missouri. It is Missouri's largest university and the flagship of the four-campus University of Missouri System. MU was founded in ...

, and the

University of Illinois at Chicago The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is a public research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its campus is in the Near West Side community area, adjacent to the Chicago Loop. The second campus established under the University of Illinois ...

. He was editor of ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'' magazine from 1978 to 1984. The John Frederick Nims Memorial Prize, for poetry translation, is awarded by the

Poetry Foundation The Poetry Foundation is an American literary society that seeks to promote poetry and lyricism in the wider culture. It was formed from ''Poetry'' magazine, which it continues to publish, with a 2003 gift of $200 million from philanthropist Ru ...

Awards

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 ...

grant * National Foundation for the Arts and Humanities grant * Institute of the Humanities fellowship * 1982

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 ...

fellowship * 1986 Guggenheim Fellowship * 1991

Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry The Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry is an annual prize, administered by the ''Sewanee Review'' and the University of the South, awarded to a writer who has had a substantial and distinguished career. It was established through a beq ...

. * 1993 O.B. Hardison Prize

Bibliography

*The Powers Of Heaven And Earth: New And Selected Poems (Louisiana State University Press, 2002) * *''Zany in Denim'' (University of Arkansas Press, 1990) *, selected for the New York Public Library's '' Ninety from the Nineties''. *''The Kiss: A Jambalaya'' (1982) * *Of Flesh and Bone (1967) *''Knowledge of the Evening'' (1960), which was nominated for a

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 ...

*''A Fountain in Kentucky'' (1950) * *''

Five Young American Poets ''Five Young American Poets'' was a three volume series of poetry anthologies released from 1940 to 1944. The series was published by New Directions Publishers (Norfolk, Connecticut; James Laughlin, publisher). Volume I - 1940 includes select ...

'' (1944)

Anthologies

Translations

*''Euripides: Four Tragedies'' (1958) *''Sappho to Valery: Poems in Translation'' (1971) * *''Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry'' (1983) *

Editor

*''

Ovid Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō (; 20 March 43 BC – 17/18 AD), known in English as Ovid ( ), was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the th ...

Metamorphoses The ''Metamorphoses'' ( la, Metamorphōsēs, from grc, μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is a Latin narrative poem from 8 CE by the Roman poet Ovid. It is considered his ''magnum opus''. The poem chronicles the history of the ...

: The

Arthur Golding Arthur Golding (May 1606) was an English translator of more than 30 works from Latin into English. While primarily remembered today for his translation of Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' because of its influence on William Shakespeare's works, in his ...

Translation of 1567'' (1965) *

Criticism

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Nims, John Frederick 1913 births 1999 deaths 20th-century American poets Poets from Michigan People from Muskegon, Michigan University of Chicago alumni Harvard University faculty Academic staff of the University of Florence University of Missouri faculty