Shapiro, Karl

▪ 2000

      American poet and critic (b. Nov. 10, 1913, Baltimore, Md.—d. May 14, 2000, New York, N.Y.), won attention early in his career as a writer of technically accomplished verse but later, particularly after he attacked the modernist movement in poetry, suffered from neglect. He attended the University of Virginia, the Peabody (music) Institute, and Johns Hopkins University, the latter two in Baltimore, but did not graduate. V-Letter and Other Poems (1944), written in New Guinea while he was a solider in the U.S. Army during World War II and the recipient of lavish praise from reviewers, won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945. The volume included one of his most anthologized poems, “Elegy for a Dead Soldier.” In 1946–47 he was consultant in poetry at the Library of Congress, and he edited Poetry magazine from 1950 to 1956 and then, for nearly a decade, the Nebraska-based Prairie Schooner. After teaching briefly at Johns Hopkins and at the Chicago campus of the University of Illinois, he spent two decades at the University of California, Davis. Among his many honours was the 1969 Bollingen Prize, and he twice received a Guggenheim fellowship. His criticism of poets like T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, sometimes in biting, even mocking, terms, coupled with an anti-intellectualist stance and the adoption of the prose poem and other antimodernist forms, put him in disfavour during the latter part of his life. He nonetheless maintained the exuberant, irreverent spirit for which he had long been known. Among his volumes of poetry were Poems of a Jew (1958), The Bourgeois Poet (1964), Collected Poems, 1940–1978 (1978), and New & Selected Poems, 1940–86 (1987).

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▪ American poet

in full  Karl Jay Shapiro 

born Nov. 10, 1913, Baltimore, Md., U.S.

died May 14, 2000, New York, N.Y.

      American poet and critic whose verse ranges from passionately physical love lyrics to sharp social satire.

      Educated at the University of Virginia and Johns Hopkins University, Shapiro first came to critical attention in 1942 with Person, Place and Thing, a celebration of his world. V-Letter and Other Poems (1944), which was based on his experiences during World War II, won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1945. Other volumes of poetry followed, notably Poems of a Jew (1958), White-Haired Lover (1968), Collected Poems, 1948–1978 (1978), and The Wild Card (1998). Shapiro also wrote several works of literary criticism, including Beyond Criticism (1953), In Defense of Ignorance (1960), and The Poetry Wreck (1975), and he was harshly critical of poets T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens, William Butler Yeats, and Ezra Pound. A consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress (1946–47) and editor of Poetry magazine (1950–56), Shapiro also taught at the universities of Nebraska, Illinois, and California. His autobiography, Reports of My Death, was published in 1990.

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