William Corbett (October 11, 1942 – August 10, 2018) was 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 wri ...

essayist An essay is, generally, a piece of writing that gives the author's own argument, but the definition is vague, overlapping with those of a letter, a paper, an article, a pamphlet, and a short story. Essays have been sub-classified as formal ...

, editor, educator, and publisher. Corbett's work and public readings acknowledge the influence on him of jazz, modernist and imagist poetry (especially

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 ...

and Ezra Pound in his later work), the group of poets in

Donald Allen Donald Merriam Allen (Iowa, 1912 – San Francisco, August 29, 2004) was an American editor, publisher and translator of American literature. He is best known for his project '' The New American Poetry 1945-1960'' (1960), one of the anthologi ...

's seminal anthology ''

The New American Poetry 1945–1960 ''The New American Poetry 1945–1960'' is a poetry anthology edited by Donald Allen and published in 1960. It aimed to pick out the "third generation" of American modernist poets, and included quite a number of poems fresh from the little magaz ...

'', many of them from the Black Mountain College community (most notably

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

Frank O'Hara Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara (March 27, 1926 – July 25, 1966) was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world. O'Hara is regarded as a leading figure i ...

James Schuyler James Marcus Schuyler (November 9, 1923 – April 12, 1991) was an American poet. His awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his 1980 collection ''The Morning of the Poem''. He was a central figure in the New York School and is of ...

, his friends

Robert Creeley Robert White Creeley (May 21, 1926 – March 30, 2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Char ...

and

John Wieners John Joseph Wieners (January 6, 1934 – March 1, 2002) was an American poet. Early life Born in Milton, Massachusetts, Wieners attended St. Gregory Elementary School in Dorchester, Massachusetts and Boston College High School. From 1950 to 195 ...

, and his mentor,

Charles Olson Charles Olson (27 December 1910 – 10 January 1970) was a second generation modern American poet who was a link between earlier figures such as Ezra Pound and William Carlos Williams and the New American poets, which includes the New York ...

), classical Chinese poets (mainly

Li Po Li Bai (, 701–762), also pronounced as Li Bo, courtesy name Taibai (), was a Chinese poet, acclaimed from his own time to the present as a brilliant and romantic figure who took traditional poetic forms to new heights. He and his friend Du Fu ...

), and French poetry of the mid-19th to early 20th centuries (especially

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire) of the Wąż coat of arms. (; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic of Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of t ...

Life and work

Corbett served as a teacher in the Expository Writing program 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 ...

and as writer-in-residence in the Program of Writing and Humanistic Studies at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

(MIT), where he taught classes focusing on the craft of the personal essay and the creation of poetry. He edited for the small publisher Pressed Wafer, which specializes in poetry broadsides, chapbooks and books. Corbett edited the letters of

and published two memoirs: ''

Philip Guston Philip Guston (born Phillip Goldstein, June 27, 1913 – June 7, 1980), was a Canadian American painter, printmaker, muralist and draftsman. Early in his five decade career, muralist David Siquieros described him as one of "the most promising ...

's Late Work: A Memoir'' (1994) and ''Furthering My Education'' (1997). He wrote frequently on art, and in 1999 published a book on the sculptor

John Raimondi John Raimondi (born May, 1948) is an American sculptor best known as a creator of monumental public sculpture, with works throughout the United States and several European countries. He lives and works in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Biography ...

. Corbett had been a member of the CUE Art Foundation's Advisory Council since the Foundation opened its doors in 2003. He lived in Boston's South End for most of his adult life, but moved to

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

. Corbett served as the poetry editor of Grand Street and frequently submitted work to local Boston newspapers, including the ''

Boston Phoenix ''The Phoenix'' (stylized as ''The Phœnix'') was the name of several alternative weekly periodicals published in the United States of America by Phoenix Media/Communications Group of Boston, Massachusetts, including the ''Portland Phoenix'' an ...

'', for which he contributed book reviews. He also taught at

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then- Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, th ...

. He was married and had two daughters.

Selected publications

*''Columbus Square Journal'' (Angel Hair Books, 1976) *''Runaway Pond'' (Applewood Books, 1982) *''Collected Poems'' ( National Poetry Foundation, 1984) *''On Blue Note'' (Zoland Books, 1989) *''Don't Think: Look'' (Zoland Books, 1991) *''Literary New England: A History and Guide'' (

Faber & Faber Faber and Faber Limited, usually abbreviated to Faber, is an independent publishing house in London. Published authors and poets include T. S. Eliot (an early Faber editor and director), W. H. Auden, Margaret Storey, William Golding, Samuel ...

, 1993) *''Philip Guston's Late Work: A Memoir'' (Zoland Books, 1994) *''New & Selected Poems'' (Zoland Books, 1995) *''Furthering My Education'' (Zoland Books, 1997) *''New York Literary Lights'' (Graywolf Press, 1998) (pbk.) *''Boston Vermont'' (Zoland Books, 1999) *''John Raimondi'' (Hudson Hills Press, 1999) *editor (with Michael Gizzi & Joseph Torra): ''The Blind See Only This World: Poems for

'' (Granary Books/Pressed Wafer, 2000) *''All Prose: Selected Essays and Reviews'' (Zoland Books, 2001) *editor: ''Just The Thing: Selected Letters of James Schuyler 1951-1991'' (Turtle Point Press, 2004) *editor: ''The Letters of James Schuyler to

'' (Turtle Point Press, 2005) *''Opening Day'' (Hanging Loose Press, 2008) *''Albert York'' (Pressed Wafer, 2010) *''The Whalen Poem'' (Hanging Loose Press, 2011) *''Elegies for Michael Gizzi'' (Kat Ran Press, 2012)

References

External links

Author page at ''Ploughshares
includes links to on-line reviews and poems by Corbett, and reviews of his work from past issues of

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Bos ...

going back to the Fall of 1971
''Pair of Jacks''
on-line poem by Corbett at ''Shampoo'', Issue 24
THE ROMANCE OF LIFE AND ART
an Interview with William Corbett published on-line in ''Rain Taxi'' (2005)

Corbett in conversation with

Pam Brown Pamela Jane Barclay Brown (born 1948) is an Australian poet. Career Pam Brown was born in Seymour, Victoria. Most of her childhood was spent on military bases in Toowoomba and Brisbane. Since her early twenties, she has lived in Melbourne a ...

, on-line at ''Jacket Magazine''
''Demon daze: Hart Crane complete''
on-line review by Corbett of '' Hart Crane: Complete Poems & Selected Letters'' ( The Library of America)
Corbett Audio-files @PennSound
recordings of Corbett reading at Penn School of Design on February 3, 2005

This letter discusses

& was first published in ''Minutes of the Charles Olson Society #26'' (June 1998)
William Corbett at the Boston Phoenix
Some of Corbett's contributions to the Boston Phoenix.
In Conversation: Wynn Kramarsky with William Corbett
transcript of an interview before an audience at the CUE Art Foundation
Inspiration key for Boston-based poet Bill Corbett
this article first appeared on March 22, 2010
''Frank Stella 1958''
Corbett writes about the

Frank Stella Frank Philip Stella (born May 12, 1936) is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker, noted for his work in the areas of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction. Stella lives and works in New York City. Biography Frank Stella was born in Ma ...

exhibition titled ''Frank Stella 1958'' at the Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts February 4–May 7, 2006
William Corbett page and poem
at the Academy of American Poets {{DEFAULTSORT:Corbett, William 1942 births 2018 deaths American male poets 20th-century American poets Harvard University faculty American art critics MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty People from South End, Boston 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American poets 21st-century American male writers 20th-century American non-fiction writers 21st-century American non-fiction writers American male non-fiction writers