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Robert Bly

Poet

Robert Bly is a celebrated American poet and activist known for his contributions to literature and the transformation of modern poetry. Born in Minnesota in 1926, Bly's earliest works centered on the landscapes of his home state, often exploring the natural beauty and small-town nature of the Midwest. He has since developed a unique style that mixes traditional meter and rhyme with language from other cultures and sometimes surrealistic imagery. Bly's work has been praised for acting as a bridge between generations, and he has become an essential figure for younger poets. In the early 1960s, Bly founded an influential literary journal, The Fifties, then in 1968 he helped to spearhead a group of poets known as The Outlaws who sought to create an American poetic tradition separately from England's. Bly's own works are characterized by a search for personal truth often combined with mythic elements. He notably explored issues such as masculinity and fatherhood in works such as The Teeth Mother Naked at Last and Iron John. Bly was also active in politics, as a vocal opponent of war and a supporter of social justice issues. In addition to poetry, Bly is also a translator and has translated works by a variety of foreign authors, including Rilke, Neruda, and Kabir. He has been honored for his work numerous times, including being inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and has published several notable books of poetry. Bly passed away on December 11, 2018, leaving behind an indelible legacy on American literature.

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Books written (2)

Iron John: A Book About Men by Robert Bly is a classic work of modern masculinity literature and a great authentic look into the world of men.This book provides a great understanding into the idea of ...

Rendors:
1

The Kabir Book by Robert Bly is a collection of poems and songs by Indian poet Kabir. The collection includes over 250 translations of various works that have been culled from multiple sources and inc...

Rendors:
1

Rendors from (4)

1
MacArthur Fellowship (Genius Grant) Winners
1
Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction
1
Pulitzer Prize Winners for Poetry
1
Tim Ferris Show Guest

Robert Hass

January 3, 2020
Pulitzer Prize Winners for Poetry
MacArthur Fellowship (Genius Grant) Winners

No. Many poets. But reading the poets who had begun to publish in the 1940s and ’50s opened up worlds to me. The list would be long of the poets I was reading then, mostly in anthologies: Theodore Roethke, Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Bishop, John Berryman, Delmore Schwartz, Stanley Kunitz in the war generation, and then Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Gregory Corso, Sylvia Plath, Frank O’Hara, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Robert Bly, James Wright, Edward Dorn, Adrienne Rich, LeRoi Jones (Amiri Baraka), Galway Kinnell, W. S. Merwin, John Ashbery, Kenneth Koch, Etheridge Knight, John Logan. Especially in those years Denise Levertov when I was trying to figure out what free verse was. These were the years of the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War, and poetry seemed an opening in many ways. I read ravenously across this range of experiences and at the same time I was trying to get a hold on the great generation these poets came out of and/or reacted against: T. S. Eliot pre-eminently, E

Louise Erdrich

May 11, 2016
Pulitzer Prize Winner for Fiction

There are several books that I read again and again. One is Elizabeth Bowen’s Death of the Heart. It is simply perfect. I read Isak Dineson’s Seven Gothic Tales every so often, and Graham Greene’s Travels With My Aunt—all but the last paragraph which I ignore. There are many poets I read over and over. Louise Gluck, Robert Bly and his many translated books, Louise Bogan, and Wislawa Szymborska. I read Penelope Fitzgerald’s books over again and also I am now rereading 1491 by Charles Mann. I’ve read Madame Bovary and Turgenev’s First Love many times.

Tim Ferris Show Guest

The Kabir Book

November 8, 2017

The Kabir Book by Robert Bly is a collection of poems and songs by Indian poet Kabir. The collection includes over 250 translations of various works that have been culled from multiple sources and inc...

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