August Kleinzahler
Encyclopedia
Life and career
Until he was 11, he went to school in Fort Lee, New JerseyFort Lee, New Jersey
Fort Lee is a borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the borough population was 35,345. Located atop the Hudson Palisades, the borough is the western terminus of the George Washington Bridge...
, where he grew up. He then commuted to the Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School
Horace Mann School is an independent college preparatory school in New York City, New York, United States founded in 1887 known for its rigorous course of studies. Horace Mann is a member of the Ivy Preparatory School League, educating students from all across the New York tri-state area from...
in the Bronx, graduating in 1967. He wrote poetry from this time, inspired by Keats and Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth
Kenneth Rexroth was an American poet, translator and critical essayist. He is regarded as a central figure in the San Francisco Renaissance, and paved the groundwork for the movement...
translations, among other works. He started college at the University of Wisconsin–Madison
University of Wisconsin–Madison
The University of Wisconsin–Madison is a public research university located in Madison, Wisconsin, United States. Founded in 1848, UW–Madison is the flagship campus of the University of Wisconsin System. It became a land-grant institution in 1866...
but dropped out and after taking a year out of school, he ended up, 1971, at the University of Victoria
University of Victoria
The University of Victoria, often referred to as UVic, is the second oldest public research university in British Columbia, Canada. It is a research intensive university located in Saanich and Oak Bay, about northeast of downtown Victoria. The University's annual enrollment is about 20,000 students...
on Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island
Vancouver Island is a large island in British Columbia, Canada. It is one of several North American locations named after George Vancouver, the British Royal Navy officer who explored the Pacific Northwest coast of North America between 1791 and 1794...
, British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. Drawn to the New York poets
New York School
The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
, including Frank O’Hara, Kleinzahler then discovered the work of Basil Bunting
Basil Bunting
Basil Cheesman Bunting was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud...
, who had a major influence on Kleinzahler's search for his own voice in poetry. He described the collection Briggflatts as "everything I wanted in poetry.” Bunting taught a creative writing at Victoria: "He began with some poems by Hardy and Hopkins, The Wreck of the Deutschland, and went up to Yeats and Pound, then David Jones, Williams, the poets who were important to Bunting, Hugh MacDiarmid, Lorine Niedecker, and H.D. All he did was smoke unfiltered Player’s and read to us". The Anglo-American poet Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn
Thom Gunn, born Thomson William Gunn , was an Anglo-American poet who was praised both for his early verses in England, where he was associated with The Movement and his later poetry in America, even after moving toward a looser, free-verse style...
(1929–2004) was also a major influence: "the honest treatment of the poetic material at hand, not slipping into rhetorical or poetic postures, inflating subject matter or dodging difficulty," Kleinzahler explained in an interview in The Paris Review in the fall of 2007. Gunn would become a close friend.William Corbett (Fall 2007). "August Kleinzahler, The Art of Poetry No. 93". The Paris Review. William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams
William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...
was also an important source of inspiration.
Amassing gambling debts and wanted by the police, Kleinzahler's brother committed suicide in 1971, when the poet was 21. They were very close and Kleinzahler was devastated by the death. The book Storm over Hackensack is dedicated to him and Cutty, One Rock is about him. Kleinzahler commented "he remains a sort of lodestar for me, encouraging my better, braver self."
After university Kleinzahler spent a year in Alaska working in "manpower jobs: hard labor" and then got a job at the Alaska State Museum. He got his teaching credentials and then lived in Montreal for two and a half years. A passionate blues lover, Kleinzahler wrote a music column for the San Diego Reader for many years. He has lived in the Haight Ashbury neighborhood in San Francisco but has retained strong ties to his old home base in New Jersey. In 2005 he was named the first poet laureate of Fort Lee.
Kleinzahler is the author of ten books of poetry, including The Strange Hours Travelers Keep and Sleeping It Off in Rapid City. He has also published a non-fiction work, Cutty, One Rock (Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained). Allen Ginsberg
Allen Ginsberg
Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an American poet and one of the leading figures of the Beat Generation in the 1950s. He vigorously opposed militarism, materialism and sexual repression...
commented: "August Kleinzahler's verse line is always precise, concrete, intelligent and rare - that quality of 'chiseled' verse memorable in Basil Bunting
Basil Bunting
Basil Cheesman Bunting was a significant British modernist poet whose reputation was established with the publication of Briggflatts in 1966. He had a lifelong interest in music that led him to emphasise the sonic qualities of poetry, particularly the importance of reading poetry aloud...
's and Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
's work. A loner, a genius."
Awards
- 2008 National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle AwardThe National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
in Poetry for Sleeping it Off in Rapid City. - 2004 Griffin Poetry PrizeGriffin Poetry PrizeThe Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
- 2000 Berlin PrizeBerlin PrizeThe Berlin Prize is a residential fellowship at the Hans Arnhold Center, awarded by the American Academy in Berlin.- Fellows of the American Academy in Berlin :-References:*http://www.americanacademy.de/home/about-us/hans-arnhold-center/...
- 1989 Guggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim FellowshipGuggenheim Fellowships are American grants that have been awarded annually since 1925 by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the arts." Each year, the foundation makes...
Poetry collections
- Sleeping It Off in Rapid City, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008, ISBN 9780374265830
- The Strange Hours Travelers Keep, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004, ISBN 9780374529413(winner of the 2004 International Griffin Poetry PrizeGriffin Poetry PrizeThe Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
) - Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club : Poems: 1975-1990, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000, ISBN 9780571204281
- Green Sees Things in Waves, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1999, ISBN 9780374525842
- Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow, Farrar Straus & Giroux, 1995, ISBN 9780571174317
- Like cities, like storms, Picador Australia, 1992, ISBN 9780330273213
- Earthquake Weather, Moyer Bell Ltd, 1989, ISBN 9780918825988
- Storm over Hackensack, Moyer Bell Ltd, 1985, ISBN 9780918825087
- A Calendar of Airs, Coach House Press, 1978, ISBN 9780889101036
- The sausage master of Minsk: poems, Villeneuve, 1977, ISBN 9780920288009
Prose
- Music: I-LXXIV, Pressed Wafer, 2009, ISBN 9780978515690
- Cutty, One Rock : Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005, ISBN 9780374530181
External links
- Diary Entry at London Review of Books February, 2010
- August Kleinzahler at FSG
- Griffin Poetry Prize biography
- Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip
- Griffin Poetry Prize 2005 keynote speech, including audio clips
- In Addition to His Pugnacity and Charm, He Can Write Poetry, New York Times, August 2, 2005
- Bullies, Addicts and Losers: A Poet Loves Them All, New York Times, April 24, 2008
- Kleinzahleresque, Open Letters, May, 2008
- "Writing in the realm of fire: August Kleinzahler", The Guardian, 18 April 2009, James Campbell
- "An Interview with August Kleinzahler", Bookslut, January 2005