David Wagoner
{{Short description|American poet and novelist (1926–2021)}}
{{Infobox writer
| name = David Wagoner
| birth_date = {{birth date|1926|6|5}}
| birth_place = Massillon, Ohio, U.S.
| death_date = {{death date and age|2021|12|18|1926|06|05}}
| death_place = Edmonds, Washington, U.S.
| occupation = {{flatlist|
- Poet
- novelist
- professor
}}
| awards = {{flatlist|
- Pushcart Prize
- Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize
}}
| spouse = Robin Seyfried
| children = 2
| portaldisp =
| birth_name = David Russell Wagoner
}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2021}}{{Use American English|date=December 2021}}
David Russell Wagoner (June 5, 1926 – December 18, 2021) was an American poet, novelist, and educator.
Biography
David Russell Wagoner was born on June 5, 1926, in Massillon, Ohio.{{Cite news|last=Genzlinger|first=Neil|author-link=Neil Genzlinger|date=2021-12-29|title=David Wagoner, Prolific Poet of the Northwest, Is Dead at 96|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/29/books/david-wagoner-dead.html|access-date=2021-12-30|issn=0362-4331}} Raised in Whiting, Indiana, from the age of seven, Wagoner attended Pennsylvania State University where he was a member of Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps and graduated in three years.{{cite web|url=http://www.bsu.edu/ourlandourlit/literature/authors/wagonerdr.html |title=David Russell Wagoner (1926-) |work=Our Land, Our Literature |publisher=Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry |access-date=2008-09-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724005122/http://www.bsu.edu/ourlandourlit/Literature/Authors/wagonerdr.html |archive-date=2008-07-24}} He received a Master of Arts in English from the Indiana University Bloomington in 1949{{cite book |first=Nicholas |last=O'Connell |author-link=Nicholas O'Connell|title=At the Field's End |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OAH9jiO3TfYC |publisher=University of Washington Press |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-295-97723-2 |location=Seattle}} and had a long association with the University of Washington where he taught, beginning in 1954, on the suggestion of friend and fellow poet Theodore Roethke.{{cite web |url=http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=7134 |title=David Wagoner (1926-2021) |publisher=Poetry Foundation |access-date=2008-09-06}}
Wagoner was editor of Poetry Northwest from 1966 to 2002.{{Cite web|date=December 21, 2021|title=David Wagoner, longtime editor of Poetry Northwest, dies at 96|url=https://www.poetrynw.org/david-wagoner-longtime-editor-of-poetry-northwest-dies-at-96/}} He was elected chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1978 and served in that capacity until 1999.{{cite web |url=http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/34 |title=Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets: Past Board of Chancellors |access-date=October 12, 2010}} One of his novels, The Escape Artist, was turned into a film by executive producer Francis Ford Coppola.{{cite web |url=https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083900/fullcredits |title=Full cast and crew for The Escape Artist (1982) |publisher=Internet Movie Database |access-date=2008-09-06}}
Wagoner was Professor Emeritus at the University of Washington, but after his retirement from full-time university teaching, Wagoner continued to lecture and teach in various workshop and low-residency writing programs, including the Hugo House and the MFA program of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island.{{cite web |url=http://www.writeonwhidbey.com/mfa/Catalogue/faculty.htm |publisher=Northwest Institute of Literary Arts |title=Whidbey Writers Workshop Catalog, 2009–2011: Faculty |access-date=October 12, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718121624/http://www.writeonwhidbey.com/mfa/Catalogue/faculty.htm |archive-date=July 18, 2011 |url-status=dead}}
Poetry and recognition
The natural environment of the Pacific Northwest was the subject of much of David Wagoner's poetry. He cited his move from the Midwest as a defining moment: "[W]hen I came over the Cascades and down into the coastal rainforest for the first time in the fall of 1954, it was a big event for me, it was a real crossing of a threshold, a real change of consciousness. Nothing was ever the same again."
David Wagoner's Collected Poems was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977 and he won the Pushcart Prize that same year. He was again nominated for a National Book Award in 1979 for In Broken Country. He won his second Pushcart Prize in 1983. He is the recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters award, the Sherwood Anderson Foundation Fiction Award, the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize (1991), the English-Speaking Union prize from Poetry magazine, and the Arthur Rense Prize in 2011. He has also received fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Death
Wagoner died in his sleep at a nursing home in Edmonds, Washington, on December 18, 2021, at the age of 95. He was survived by his wife, Robin Seyfried, and their two daughters.
Bibliography
=Poetry collections=
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=Novels=
- The Man in the Middle'' (1954)
- Money, Money, Money (1955)
- Rock (1958)
- The Escape Artist (1965)
- Baby, Come On Inside (1968)
- Where is My Wandering Boy Tonight? (1970)
- The Road to Many a Wonder (1974)
- Tracker (1975)
- Whole Hog (1976)
- The Hanging Garden (1980)
=Edited volumes=
- Straw for the Fire: From the Notebooks of Theodore Roethke (1972) (selected and arranged by David Wagoner)
- The Best American Poetry 2009
=Theatre=
- An Eye For An Eye For An Eye (produced in 1973){{cite web |url=http://depts.washington.edu/engl/events/rreaders.php#1973 |title=Past Roethke Readers |publisher=University of Washington Dept. of English |access-date=2008-09-06}}
- First Class: A Play About Theodore Roethke (2007).
References
{{Reflist|30em}}
Further reading
- {{cite book|author=David Wagoner, Richard Hugo, John Haines, William Matthews, Reg Saner, Richard Shelton, Gary Soto, and William Stafford|title=New Poetry of the American West|year=1982|publisher=Logbridge-Rhodes|location=Durango, CO|isbn=978-0-937406-19-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/newpoetryofameri0000unse/page/n105 104]|editor=Wild, Peter and Graziano, Frank|url=https://archive.org/details/newpoetryofameri0000unse|url-access=registration}} {{OCLC|8589531|655452420|610178960}} (print and on-line)
External links
- [http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10352 Biography] at HistoryLink
- [http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/151 David Wagoner] at Poets.org
- [http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poet.html?id=7134 David Wagoner (1926 – 2021)], Poetry Foundation
- [http://www.ab9il.net/radio-arts/in-distress.html David Wagoner] poem In Distress''"
- [http://cordite.org.au/features/sound-rhythm-and-meaning-a-pacific-northwest-chapbook-curated-by-david-wagoner/ David Wagoner] Sound, Rhythm and Meaning: A Pacific Northwest Chapbook Curated by David Wagoner
{{Authority control}}
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Category:20th-century American male writers
Category:20th-century American novelists
Category:20th-century American poets
Category:21st-century American male writers
Category:21st-century American poets
Category:American male novelists
Category:Indiana University Bloomington alumni
Category:National Endowment for the Arts Fellows
Category:The New Yorker people
Category:Novelists from Washington (state)
Category:Pennsylvania State University alumni
Category:People from Massillon, Ohio