Paul Mariani (born 1940 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and is University Professor Emeritus at

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifie ...

Life

Paul Mariani is the University Professor Emeritus at

, specializing in Modern American and British Poetry, religion and literature, and creative writing (memoir, biography, and poetry). Born February 29, 1940 in Astoria, Queens, he grew up in New York City and Long Island and is the oldest of seven children. He was educated at Chaminade, Beacon Marianist Prep, Mineola High School,

Manhattan College Manhattan College is a private, Catholic, liberal arts university in the Bronx, New York City. Originally established in 1853 by the Brothers of the Christian Schools (De La Salle Christian Brothers) as an academy for day students, it was la ...

Colgate University Colgate University is a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York. The college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York and operated under that name until 1823, when it was renamed Hamilton Theologi ...

, and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where his mentor was the Dante scholar,

Allen Mandelbaum __NOTOC__ Allen Mandelbaum (May 4, 1926 – October 27, 2011) was a American Jews, Jewish American professor of literature and the humanities, poet, and translator from Classical Greek, Latin and Italian. His translations of classic works gained hi ...

. He taught at Colgate University (1963),

Hunter College Hunter College is a public university in New York City. It is one of the constituent colleges of the City University of New York and offers studies in more than one hundred undergraduate and postgraduate fields across five schools. It also admi ...

(1964–1967),

Lehman College Lehman College is a public college in the Bronx borough of New York City. Founded in 1931 as the Bronx campus of Hunter College, the school became an independent college within CUNY in September 1967. The college is named after Herbert H. Lehma ...

(1965-1966) and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (1966–1968). From 1968 until 2000 he taught poetry and literature at the University of Massachusetts and was a Distinguished University Professor. From 2000 until his retirement he taught poetry and literature at Boston College and held a Chair as the University Professor of English. In addition he taught at the

Bread Loaf School of English Middlebury College is a private liberal arts college in Middlebury, Vermont. Founded in 1800 by Congregationalists, Middlebury was the first operating college or university in Vermont. The college currently enrolls 2,858 undergraduates from all 5 ...

in the 1980s and at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference from 1982 until 1996, and then for the Image conferences in Colorado Springs, Santa Fe, Whidbey Island, and Mount Holyoke. Mariani has lectured and given readings widely in the United States and abroad and has published over 250 essays, introductions, chapters in anthologies and scholarly encyclopedias, and reviews, as well as being the author of 20 books. These include biographies of

William Carlos Williams William Carlos Williams (September 17, 1883 – March 4, 1963) was an American poet, writer, and physician closely associated with modernism and imagism. In addition to his writing, Williams had a long career as a physician practicing both pedia ...

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

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 i ...

Hart Crane Harold Hart Crane (July 21, 1899 – April 27, 1932) was an American poet. Provoked and inspired by T. S. Eliot, Crane wrote modernist poetry that was difficult, highly stylized, and ambitious in its scope. In his most ambitious work, '' The Brid ...

Gerard Manley Hopkins Gerard Manley Hopkins (28 July 1844 – 8 June 1889) was an English poet and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous fame placed him among leading Victorian poets. His prosody – notably his concept of sprung rhythm – established him as an innovato ...

, and

Wallace Stevens Wallace Stevens (October 2, 1879 – August 2, 1955) was an American modernist poet. He was born in Reading, Pennsylvania, educated at Harvard and then New York Law School, and spent most of his life working as an executive for an insurance compa ...

. His biography of Williams was a finalist for the National Book Award. He has published eight volumes of poetry, most recently ''Ordinary Time: Poems'' (Slant Books), and ''The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernism'' (Paraclete Press) as well as commentaries on Hopkins, Williams, and many others. He is also the author of Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius. His awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship and several National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowships. He has taught poetry workshops at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference and the Glen Workshops, and, in 2009, he received the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. In September 2019 he was presented with the inaugural Flannery O’Connor Lifetime Achievement Award at the Catholic Imagination Conference held at Loyola University Chicago.

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-Ma ...

's film biopic of Hart Crane, '' The Broken Tower'', released in 2012, is based on Mariani's biography of the same title.

Bibliography

Poetry

* ''Timing Devices: Poems'' (Pennyroyal Press 1977) * ''Crossing Cocytus: Poems'' (

Grove Press Grove Press is an United States of America, American Imprint (trade name), publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it in ...

1982) * ''Prime Mover: Poems 1981-1985'' (Grove Press 1985) * ''Salvage Operations: New and Selected Poems'' ( W. W. Norton & Company 1990) * ''The Great Wheel: Poems'' (W. W. Norton & Company 1996) * ''Deaths & Transfigurations: Poems'' (

Paraclete Press The Community of Jesus is a charismatic monastic Christianity, Christian community which is located near Rock Harbor, in Orleans, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Overview Today according to the group, approximately 225 professed members, together ...

2005) * ''Epitaphs for the Journey: New, Selected and Revised Poems'' (Cascade Books 2012) * ''Ordinary Time: Poems'' (Slant 2020) * ''All That Will Be New: Poems (Slant 2022)

Prose

* ''A Commentary on the Complete Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins'' (

Cornell University Press The Cornell University Press is the university press of Cornell University; currently housed in Sage House, the former residence of Henry William Sage. It was first established in 1869, making it the first university publishing enterprise in th ...

1970) * ''William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics'' (

American Library Association The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with 49,727 members a ...

1975) * ''William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked'' (McGraw Hill 1981, W.W. Norton 1990 revised) * ''A Usable Past: Essays on Modern & Contemporary Poetry'' (

University of Massachusetts Press The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...

1984) * ''Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman'' (William Morrow 1990,Paragon Books 1992,University of Massachusetts Press,1996) * ''Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell'' (W.W. Norton 1994) * ''The Broken Tower: A Life of Hart Crane'' (W.W. Norton 1999) * ''Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St.Ignatius'' (Penguin Books 2002) * ''God and the Imagination: Poetry, Poets, and the Ineffable'' (University of Georgia Press 2002) * ''Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life'' (Viking/Penguin 2008) * ''The Whole Harmonium: The Life of Wallace Stevens'' (Simon & Schuster 2016) * ''The Mystery of It All: The Vocation of Poetry in the Twilight of Modernism'' (Paraclete Press 2019)

References

External links

A biography of Paul Mariani
provided by Poets.org

��poem by Mariani * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mariani, Paul American male poets American biographers Colgate University alumni Graduate Center, CUNY alumni National Endowment for the Arts Fellows Boston College faculty 1940 births Living people Manhattan College alumni Historians from New York (state) American male biographers