Stanley Burnshaw was an influential American poet, primarily known for his ontology, The Seamless Web (1970). His style was particularly writing political poems, prose, editorials, etc. Aside from political poetry, Burnshaw is known for his works on social justice.

Family life

Raised by his parents, who immigrated form England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, Stanley Burnshaw was born and brought up in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. There aren't many detailed depictions of his childhood, but in his later years Burnshaw wrote two poems giving light on that time period of his life. The first was a poem entitled "My Friend, My Father" which was about his childhood from the viewpoint of his father, and the second about his mother entitled "House in St. Petersburg". Burnshaw married Susan Cohen Oken. They had one daughter, Valeri Razavi, and later became the grandparents to one grandson.

Education

Burnshaw began his secondary education at the University of Pittsburgh

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

, transferred to Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

, and then transferred back to the University of Pittsburgh again to earn his Bachelor's Degree. After saving up money, Burnshaw traveled to Europe in 1927 to attend the University of Poitiers

University of Poitiers

The University of Poitiers is a university in Poitiers, France. It is a member of the Coimbra Group.-History:Founded in 1431 by Pope Eugene IV and chartered by King Charles VII, the University of Poitiers was originally composed of five faculties: theology, canon law, civil law, medicine, and...

 and eventually Sorbonne University. Then in 1928, he returned to New York to attend graduate school at New York University

New York University

New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...

 and earned his Masters degree.

Career

Earning his Bachelors Degree, attending his graduate studies, and eventually earning his Masters Degree, Burnshaw made a career plan to become a teacher and a writer. To save money and get started in his future career, Burnshaw started working at the Blaw-Knox Steel Corporation in Blawnox, Pennsylvania

Blawnox, Pennsylvania

Blawnox is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 1,432 at the 2010 census.-Name:The name, Blawnox, is derived from the Blaw-Knox Company, which had a manufacturing plant there providing much of the town's employment...

 as an assistant copywriter. After he returned from Europe, Burnshaw began working at the Hecht Company in New York

New York

New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

 as an advertising manager. Resigning from the Hecht Company in 1932, his next job was doing multiple duties (co-editor, drama critic, and occasional book reviewer) for The New Masses

The New Masses

The "New Masses" was a prominent American Marxist publication edited by Walt Carmon, briefly by Whittaker Chambers, and primarily by Michael Gold, Granville Hicks, and Joseph Freeman....

, a weekly editorial in New York City. In the 1930s Burnshaw got more interested in publishing. He first became the editor-in-chief for the Cordon Company in New York, then president and editor-in-chief of the Dryden Press (a firm he started) which merged with Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Holt, Rinehart and Winston

Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in secondary schools. Holt, Rinehart and Winston was a division of Harcourt Education...

 in the late 1950s. Until 1968 Bradshaw was a consultant to the house and vice-president of of Dryden Press. He published many prose, poems, books, editorials, and remained active in many other aspects of his career until his death in September 2005.

Influences

One of Bradshaw's first major influences was Andre Spire

André Spire

André Spire was a French poet, writer, and Zionist activist.-Biography:Born in 1868 in Nancy to a Jewish family of the middle bourgeoisie, long established in the Lorraine, Spire studied literature, then law...

, a French poet. He helped Bradshaw gain knowledge of many European languages, and European literature

European literature

European literature refers to the literature of Europe.European literature includes literature in many languages; among the most important of the modern written works are those in English, Spanish, French, Dutch, Polish, German, Italian, Modern Greek, Czech and Russian and works by the...

.
Another influence on Bradshaw's life and career was one of his better friends, Robert Frost

Robert Frost

Robert Lee Frost was an American poet. He is highly regarded for his realistic depictions of rural life and his command of American colloquial speech. His work frequently employed settings from rural life in New England in the early twentieth century, using them to examine complex social and...

, with whom he spent many occasions, and wrote a biography about.

Works

• Early and Late Testament (1952)
• Early and Late Testament
• Time of Brightness
• Bread
• The Iron Lands
• Do I Know Their Names?
• For a Workers' Road-Song
• All Day the Chill...
• Will You Remake These Worlds?
• A Coil of Glass
• Anchorage in Time
• This War Is Love
• Hero Statues
• Dialogue of the Heartbeat
• The Bridge
• Heartbeat Obbligato
• End of the Flower-World
• Looking for Papa
• Among Trees of Light
• Coasts of Darkness
• In Strength of Singleness
• Blood
• It Was Never This Quiet...
• When Was It Lost?
• Woodpecker
• Voices in Dearness...
• Song Aspires to Silence
• Anchorage in Time
• Two Men Fell in the Irish Sea
• Poetry: The Art
• Odes and Lyrics
• To a Young Girl Sleeping
• Innocence
• Wave
• Event in a Field
• The Fear
• Light Outlives All Shape
• Midnight: Deserted Pavements
• Random Pieces of a Man
• Waiting in Winter
• Outcast of the Waters
• Restful Ground
• Days
• Driving Song
• Willowy Wind
• The Hollow River
• Anonymous Alba: En un vergier soiz folha d'albespi
• Orléans: Le temps a laissié...
• Spire: Nudités
• Spire: Ce n'est pas toi...
• Spire: Nativité
• Spire: Un parfum éternel...
• Spire: Baisers
• Spire: Friselis
• Spire: Volupté
• Caged in an Animal's Mind (1963)
• Thoughts about a Garden
• Historical Song of Then and Now
• Summer
• Ravel and Bind
• Caged in an Animal's Mind
• Ancient of Nights
• Symbol Curse
• The Valley Between
• Thoughts about a Garden
• Petitioner Dogs
• Father-Stones
• Night of the Canyon Sun
• A Recurring Vision
• Midnight Wind to the Tossed
• The Axe of Eden
• Listen:
• Random Pieces of a Man
• 8Thoughts of the War and My Daughter
• A River
• Surface
• Preparation for Self-Portrait in Black Stone
• Mornings of St. Croix
• Boy over a Stream
• Letter from One Who Could Not Cross the Frontier
• Voyage: Journal Entry
• Nightmare in a Workshop
• Seven
• Clay
• A Rose Song
• Guide's Speech on a Road near Delphi
• Song of Nothings: In the Mountain's Shadow at Delphi
• I Think among Blank Walls
• Seedling Air
• Three in Throes
• Modes of Belief
• House in St. Petersburg
• Time Is a Double Line
• Akhmatova: The Muse
• George: Denk nicht zu viel...
• Éluard: L'Amoureuse
• Von Hofmannsthal: Eigene Sprache
• Alberti: El ángel bueno
• In the Terrified Radiance (1972)
• The Terrified Radiance
• The Terrified Radiance
• To a Crow
• Innocent War
• Gulls...
• Central Park: Midwinter
• The Finding Light
• Erstwhile Hunter
• Their Singing River (I)
• Not to Bereave...
• Underbreathing Song
• Emptiness...
• Procreations
• Women and Men
• Movie Poster on a Subway Wall
• End of a Visit
• The Echoing Shape
• Summer Morning Train to the City
• Women and Men
• Terah
• Isaac
• Talmudist
• What Plato Was
• Song of Succession
• En l'an...
• Dialogue of the Stone Other
• In the Coastal Cities
• Will of Choice
• Chanson Innocente
• The Rock
• Condor Festival
• Three Friends
• We Brought You Away As Before...
• Friend across the Ocean
• Wildness
• The Hero of Silence
• Dedication: An Eternity of Words
• Master and Pupils
• Soliloquy from a Window: Man and Flowers
• Dialogue before Waking
• Fume
• Into the Blond Torrent
• The Waking
• Second-Hand Poems
• Paz: Más allá del amor
• Spire: Retour des Martinets
• Alberti: Canción del ángel sin suerte
• Alberti: El ángel mentiroso
• Verhaeren: La Bêche
• Akhmatova: from "The White Flock"
• Unamuno: Me destierro...
• Mirages: Travel Notes in the Promised Land (1977)
• First Landscape
• Generations of Terror
• Blind Tale
• Seventh-day Mirage
• The Rock
• Talmudist
• Marching Song
• Choices
• Message to Someone Four Hundred Nights Away
• The House Hollow
• Argon
• Florida Seaside
• Old Enough at Last to Be Unsolemn
• Mind, If You Mourn at All
• To Wake Each Dawn
• Their Singing River (II)
• Speech, the Thinking-Miracle
• Man on a Greensward
• Social Poems of the Depression (from The New Masses and The Iron Land [1936])
• The Crane-Driver
• Street Song: New Style
• I, Jim Rogers
• Mr. Tubbe's Morning Service
• Notes on the Poems
• Selected Prose
• My Friend, My Father
• Stevens' "Mr. Burnshaw and the Statue"
• The Poem Itself: "Discussing Poems into English"
• Thomas Mann Translates "Tonio Kröger"
• A Future for Poetry: Planetary Maturity
• The Seamless Web
• Toward the "Knowable" Frost

Sources

• "Stanley Burnshaw: An Inventory of His Papers at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center." The WATCH File: Writers, Artists and Their Copyright Holders. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .
• Burnshaw, Stanley. "Table of Contents and Excerpt, Burnshaw, The Collected Poems and Selected Prose." Home | The University of Texas at Austin. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .
• Martin, Douglas. "Stanley Burnshaw; Man of Letters, Friend of Poet Robert Frost | The San Diego Union-Tribune." San Diego News, Local, California and National News - SignOnSanDiego.com. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .
• "UGA Press View Book." UGA Press Home Page. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .
• Martin, Douglas. "Stanley Burnshaw, Poet, Editor and Critic, Dies at 99 - New York Times." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. 17 Sept. 2005. Web. 22 Sept. 2011. .