Anthony Hecht

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Anthony Hecht
Robert Frost Medal
(2000)

Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American

Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.[1]

Biography

Early years

Hecht was born in

Jewish parents. He was educated at various schools in the city – he was a classmate of Jack Kerouac at Horace Mann School – but showed no great academic ability, something he would later refer to as "conspicuous". However, as a freshman English student at Bard College in New York he discovered the works of Wallace Stevens, W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, and Dylan Thomas.[2] It was at this point that he decided he would become a poet. Hecht's parents were not happy at his plans and tried to discourage them, even getting family friend Ted Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, to attempt to dissuade him.[citation needed
]

In 1944, upon completing his final year at Bard, Hecht was drafted into the

Ruhr Pocket"[4] and in Cheb in Czechoslovakia. However, his most significant experience occurred on April 23, 1945, when Hecht's division helped liberate Flossenbürg concentration camp. Hecht was ordered to interview French prisoners in the hope of gathering evidence on the camp's commanders. Years later, Hecht said of this experience, "The place, the suffering, the prisoners' accounts were beyond comprehension. For years after I would wake shrieking."[2]

Career

After the war ended, Hecht was sent to occupied Japan, where he became a staff writer with Stars and Stripes.[5] He returned to the US in March 1946 and immediately took advantage of the G.I. Bill to study under the poet–critic John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College, Ohio. Here he came into contact with fellow poets such as Randall Jarrell, Elizabeth Bishop, and Allen Tate. He later received his master's degree from Columbia University. In 1947 Hecht attended the University of Iowa and taught in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, together with writer Robie Macauley, with whom Hecht had served during World War II,[6] but, suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after his war service, gave it up swiftly to enter psychoanalysis.[7][8]

Hecht's grave at Bard College Cemetery in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

In spring, 1947, he taught at Kenyon. His first poems, "Once Removed" and "To a Soldier Killed in Germany", were published in The Kenyon Review. Later that year, he suffered a nervous breakdown and returned to his parents' home in New York City and entered psychoanalysis. In 1948, his poems begin to appear in The Hudson Review, Poetry, and Furioso. He later won the Furioso Poetry Award and enrolled at Columbia University as a candidate for a master's degree in English literature.[9]

Hecht released his first collection, A Summoning of Stones, in 1954. Even at this stage Hecht's poetry was often compared with that of

nervous breakdown in 1959.[10] Hecht spent three months in hospital following his breakdown, although he was spared electric shock therapy, unlike Sylvia Plath, whom he had encountered while teaching at Smith College
.

Hecht's main source of income was as a teacher of poetry, most notably at the

Frost Medal, and the Tanning Prize.[12]

Hecht died on October 20, 2004, at his home in Washington, D.C.;[1] he is buried at the cemetery at Bard College. One month later, on November 17, Hecht was awarded the National Medal of Arts, accepted on his behalf by his wife, Helen Hecht.[13]

The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is awarded annually by the Waywiser Press.[14]

Literary style, inspirations, and themes

Hecht was known for his masterful use of traditional forms and linguistic control. Extraordinarily erudite, his verse often features allusions to French literature, Greek myth, and tragedy, and English poets and poetry stretching from Wallace Stevens to John Donne. He was often described as a "traditionalist". In The Hard Hours (1967), Hecht drew upon his experiences as a soldier in Europe during World War II.[15]

Bibliography

Poetry
Translations
Other Works

References

  1. ^ a b Shapiro, Harvey (October 22, 2004). "Anthony Hecht, a Formalist Poet, Dies at 81". The New York Times.
  2. ^ a b Matt Schudel (October 22, 2004). "Poet, Essayist Anthony Hecht Dies at 81". The Washington Post.
  3. ISBN 978-1421407302
  4. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9736.2008.00410.x
    .
  5. ^ Geoffrey Lindsay, "Anthony Hecht in Occupied Japan". Sewanee Review, 2011, 119 (4). pp. 641–655.
  6. ^ Kennedy, Thomas E., "A Last Conversation with Robie Macauley", Agnii, Vol. 45, 1997.
  7. ^ "Anthony Hecht, obituary". Archived from the original on 2012-03-16. Retrieved 2010-12-28.
  8. ^ "Anthony Hecht Obituary". Archived from the original on 2012-03-16. Retrieved 2010-12-28.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  9. ISBN 0375711988
  10. ^ Philip Hoy, Anthony Hecht in Conversation with Philip Hoy. London: Between the Lines, 2004. Archived 2011-10-25 at the Wayback Machine
  11. ^ "Anthony Hecht". The Daily Telegraph. London. October 25, 2004.
  12. ISBN 978-1-57356-111-2
    .
  13. ^ National Endowment for the Arts – 2004 National Medal of Arts Archived 2010-05-29 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ^ The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize Archived 2010-08-15 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ "Anthony Hecht". 23 September 2021.

External links