Mona Jane Van Duyn (May 9, 1921 – December 2, 2004) was an American poet. She was appointed

United States Poet Laureate The Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—commonly referred to as the United States Poet Laureate—serves as the official poet of the United States. During their term, the poet laureate seeks to raise the national cons ...

in 1992.

Biography

Early years

Van Duyn was born May 9, 1921 in

Waterloo, Iowa Waterloo is a city in and the county seat of Black Hawk County, Iowa, United States. As of the 2020 United States Census the population was 67,314, making it the eighth-largest city in the state. The city is part of the Waterloo – Cedar Falls ...

."Van Duyn, Mona (1921–2004)." '' Dictionary of Women Worldwide: 25,000 Women Through the Ages'', edited by Anne Commire and Deborah Klezmer, vol. 2, Yorkin Publications, 2007, p. 1916. ''Gale eBooks''. Accessed 6 Sept. 2021. She grew up in the small town of Eldora (pop. 3,200) where she read voraciously in the town library and wrote poems secretly in notebooks from her grade school years to her high school years. Van Duyn earned a B.A. from

Iowa State Teachers College The University of Northern Iowa (UNI) is a public university in Cedar Falls, Iowa. UNI offers more than 90 majors across the colleges of Business Administration, Education, Humanities, Arts, and Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences and ...

in 1942, and an M.A. from the

State University of Iowa The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is organized into 12 coll ...

in 1943, the year she married Jarvis Thurston. She and Thurston studied in the Ph.D. program at Iowa. In 1946 she was hired as an instructor at the

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public research university in Louisville, Kentucky. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. When founded in 1798, it was the first city-owned public university in the United States and one ...

when her husband became an assistant professor there. Together they began ''Perspective: A Quarterly of Literature and the Arts'' in 1947, which she edited for the next twenty years. They shifted that journal to Washington University in St. Louis when they moved there in 1950.

Academic career

In St. Louis, Van Duyn taught English from 1950 to 1967 at Washington University. Thurston became chair of the Washington University Department of English, and Van Duyn and Thurston drew to St. Louis and presided over what would become a unique literary circle of creative writers and critics. (It included poet

Howard Nemerov Howard Nemerov (March 1, 1920 – July 5, 1991) was an American poet. He was twice Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, from 1963 to 1964 and again from 1988 to 1990. For ''The Collected Poems of Howard Nemerov'' (1977) ...

, novelist and critic

William Gass William Howard Gass (July 30, 1924 – December 6, 2017) was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, critic, and philosophy professor. He wrote three novels, three collections of short stories, a collection of novellas, and seven vol ...

, novelist Stanley Elkin, poets Donald Finkel and John Morris, critic Richard Stang, authors Wayne Fields and Naomi Lebowitz, and others.) Joan Elkin's Painting, Jarvis Thurston and His Circle

Joan Elkin's Painting, Jarvis Thurston and His Circle

Continuing to edit ''Perspective'' until it ceased publication in 1975, they are recognized for their role in fostering literary talent nationwide and for publishing early works by

Anthony Hecht Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, ...

, W. S. Merwin,

Douglas Woolf Douglas Woolf (March 23, 1922 – January 18, 1992) was an American author of short stories, novels and book reviews. Biography Born in New York City, Woolf grew up in Larchmont, New York and attended Harvard University from 1939 to 1942. D ...

, and many others. Van Duyn was a friend of poet James Merrill and instrumental in securing his papers for the Washington University Special Collections in the mid 1960s. She was a lecturer in the University College of Washington University in St. Louis until her retirement in 1990. In 1983, a year after she had published her fifth book of poems, she was named Adjunct Professor in the English Department and became the "Visiting Hurst Professor" in 1987, the year she was invited to be a member of the

National Institute 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 ...

Career as a poet

Van Duyn won every major U.S. prize for poetry, including 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 ...

(1971) for ''To See, To Take'', the

Bollingen Prize The Bollingen Prize for Poetry is a literary honor bestowed on an American poet in recognition of the best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement.

(1971), the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1989), and the

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 ...

(1991) for '' Near Changes''. She was the U.S. Poet Laureate between 1992 and 1993. Despite her accolades, her career fluctuated between praise and obscurity. Her views of

love Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest Interpersonal relationship, interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of ...

and

marriage Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between ...

ranged from the scathing to the optimistic. In "What I Want to Say", she wrote of love: :''It is the absolute narrowing of possibilities'' :''and everyone, down to the last man'' :''dreads it'' But in "Late Loving", she wrote: :''Love is finding the familiar dear'' ''To See, To Take'' (1970) was a collection of poems that gathered together three previous books and some uncollected work and won the National Book Award for Poetry. In 1981 she became a fellow in 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 ...

and then, in 1985, one of the twelve Chancellors who serve for life. Collected poems, ''If It Be Not I'' (1992) included four volumes that had appeared since her first collected poems. It was published simultaneously with a new collection of poetry, ''Firefall''. In 1993, she was inducted into the St. Louis Walk of Fame. She 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, a ...

in 1996. She died of

bone cancer A bone tumor is an abnormal growth of tissue in bone, traditionally classified as noncancerous (benign) or cancerous (malignant). Cancerous bone tumors usually originate from a cancer in another part of the body such as from lung, breast, thy ...

at her home in

University City, Missouri University City (colloquially, U. City) is an inner-ring suburb of the city of St. Louis in St. Louis County, in the U.S. state of Missouri. The population was measured at 35,065 by the 2020 census. The city is one of the older suburbs in the ...

, on December 2, 2004, aged 83.

Works

*''Valentines to the Wide World'' (The Cummington Press), 1959. *'' A Time of Bees'' (University of North Carolina Press), 1964. *''To See, To Take: Poems'' (Atheneum), 1970 —winner of the 1971 National Book Award for Poetry"National Book Awards – 1971"

National Book Foundation The National Book Foundation (NBF) is an American nonprofit organization established, "to raise the cultural appreciation of great writing in America". Established in 1989 by National Book Awards, Inc.,Edwin McDowell. "Book Notes: 'The Joy Luc ...

. Retrieved 2012-04-07.
(With acceptance speech by Van Duyn and essay by Dilruba Ahmed from the Awards 60-year anniversary blog.) *''Bedtime Stories'' (Ceres Press), 1972. *''Merciful Disguises:: Poems Published and Unpublished'' (Atheneum), 1973. *''Letters From a Father, and Other Poems'' (Atheneum), 1982. *'' Near Changes'' (Knopf), 1990 —winner of the 1991

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 ...

"Poetry"
''Past winners & finalists by category''. The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2012-04-07. *'' Firefall'' (Knopf), 1992. *''If It Be Not I: Collected Poems, 1959-1982'' (Knopf), 1994. *''Selected Poems'' (Knopf), 2003.

References

External links

Mona Van Duyn Papers
at Washington University in St. Louis — with brief biography

pages at Modern American Poetry, Department of English, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Mona Van Duyn
at the

Mona Van Duyn
at the St. Louis Walk of Fame
Mona Van Duyn
Web Guide at the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

Mona van Duyn
Biography and poems at 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 ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Duyn, Mona Jane Formalist poets American Poets Laureate Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners National Book Award winners Poets from Missouri University of Louisville faculty Washington University in St. Louis faculty University of Northern Iowa alumni University of Iowa alumni 1921 births 2004 deaths Deaths from bone cancer Bollingen Prize recipients Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences American women poets Writers from Waterloo, Iowa People from Eldora, Iowa 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters