Louis Simpson

{{Infobox person

| birth_name = Louis Aston Marantz Simpson

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1923|03|27}}

| birth_place = Colony of Jamaica

| death_date = {{Death date and age|2012|09|14|1923|03|27}}

| death_place = Stony Brook, New York

| education = Columbia University (BA, MA, PhD)

| occupation = Poet

| known_for = 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At the End of the Open Road

}}

Louis Aston Marantz Simpson (March 27, 1923 – September 14, 2012){{cite web|url=http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/86|title=Bio, Louis Simpson|publisher=Academy of American Poets|access-date=17 September 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140415052531/http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/86|archive-date=15 April 2014|url-status=dead}} was an American poet born in Jamaica. He won the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his work At the End of the Open Road.

Life and career

Simpson was born in Jamaica, the son of Rosalind (née Marantz) and Aston Simpson, a lawyer. His father was of Scottish and African ancestry. His mother was born in Russia (Simpson did not find out that he was of Jewish descent until his teenage years).{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/louis-simpson-salem/louis-simpson-9810001635 |title=Louis Simpson Biography – Cyclopedia of World Authors, Fourth Revised Edition |publisher=Enotes.com |access-date=2012-09-18}}{{cite web|url=http://www.enotes.com/louis-simpson-criticism/simpson-louis-vol-149 |title=Louis Simpson Criticism (Vol. 149) |publisher=Enotes.com |access-date=2012-09-18}}{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/arts/louis-simpson-a-pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-dies-at-89.html?_r=1 |title=Louis Simpson a Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet dies at 89 |newspaper=New York Times |date=18 September 2012 |access-date=2012-09-18|last1=Rothstein |first1=Mervyn }} At the age of 17, he emigrated to the United States and began attending Columbia University, where he studied under Mark Van Doren.[http://www.c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/mark_van_doren.html "Mark Van doren", Columbia 250 – Colombian Ahead of Their Times] Columbia University. During World War II, from 1943 to 1945 he was a member of the elite 101st Airborne Division and would fight in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany. Simpson was a runner for the company captain, which involved transporting orders from company headquarters to officers on the front line. His company was involved in a very bloody battle with German forces on the west bank of what is now the Carentan France Marina - Simpson wrote his poem "Carentan O Carentan" about the experience of US troops being ambushed there. In the Netherlands, he was involved in Market Garden and Opheusden fighting. At Veghel his company suffered 21 killed in a brutal shelling while in the local church yard. At Bastogne bitterly cold temperatures had to be endured while the 101st Division was surrounded by enemy forces for days. After the end of the war he attended the University of Paris. Subsequently, he returned to the US and worked as an editor in New York. He later completed his B.A. at Columbia University's School of General Studies in 1948,{{cite web|url=http://gs.columbia.edu/notable-alumni|access-date=January 25, 2013|title=Notable Alumni|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190622204222/https://gs.columbia.edu/notable-alumni|archive-date=June 22, 2019|url-status=dead}} and completed his M.A. and Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1950 and 1959, respectively.{{cite news|title=Louis Simpson, Poet of Everyday Life, Dies at 89|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/arts/louis-simpson-a-pulitzer-prize-winning-poet-dies-at-89.html?pagewanted=all|access-date=January 25, 2013|newspaper=The New York Times|date=September 17, 2012}}

His first book was The Arrivistes, published in 1949. It was hailed for its strong formal verse, but Simpson later moved away from the style of his early successes and embraced a spare brand of free verse.

He taught at universities including Columbia, the University of California-Berkeley, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He also briefly taught at The Stony Brook School{{cite news|url=http://www.newsday.com//long-island/obituaries/prize-winning-poet-louis-simpson-dies-1.4019619|title=Prize-winning poet Louis Simpson dies |newspaper=Newsday |access-date=2012-09-20}} prior to his retirement. Simpson's lifelong expatriate status has influenced his poetry, and he often uses the lives of ordinary Americans in order to critically investigate the myths the country tells itself. Although he occasionally revisits the West Indies of his childhood, he always keeps one foot in his adopted country. The outsider's perspective allows him to confront "the terror and beauty of life with a wry sense of humor and a mysterious sense of fate," wrote Edward Hirsch of The Washington Post. Elsewhere Hirsch described Simpson's Pulitzer Prize–winning collection, At the End of the Open Road, as "a sustained meditation on the American character," noting, "The moral genius of this book is that it traverses the open road of American mythology and brings us back to ourselves; it sees us not as we wish to be but as we are." Collected Poems (1988) and There You Are (1995) focus on the lives of everyday citizens, using simple diction and narratives to expose the bewildering reality of the American dream. Poet Mark Jarman hailed Simpson as "a poet of the American character and vernacular."

Simpson lived on the North Shore of Long Island, near Stony Brook, New York. He died on September 14, 2012.{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19633296|title= US poet Louis Simpson dies at 89|work= BBC News|date= 18 September 2012|access-date=2012-09-18}}

Awards

1962 Guggenheim Fellowship
1964 Pulitzer Prize
Rome Prize
1998 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award
2004 Finalist, Griffin Poetry Prize (International)

Selected works

=Novels=

Riverside Drive. Publisher, Atheneum, 1962

=Poetry=

{{cite book| title=The Arrivistes: Poems, 1940–1949| publisher=Fine Editions Press| year=1949 }}
{{cite book| title=Good News of Death| publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons| date=1955 |series=Poets of Today |volume=2 }}
{{cite book| title=A Dream of Governors: Poems| publisher=Wesleyan University Press| year=1959 }}
{{cite book| title=At the End of the Open Road, Poems| url=https://archive.org/details/atendofopenroadp0000simp| url-access=registration| publisher=Wesleyan University Press| year=1963| isbn=978-0-8195-2020-3 }}
{{cite book| title=Selected Poems| publisher=Harcourt, Brace & World| year=1965 }}
{{cite book| title=Adventures of the Letter I| url=https://archive.org/details/adventuresoflett00simp| url-access=registration| publisher=Harper & Row| year=1971| isbn=9780060138844}}
{{cite book| title=Searching for the Ox| publisher=Oxford University Press| year=1976| isbn=978-0-19-211860-8 }}
{{cite book| title=Armidale| publisher=The Book Bus| year=1979 }}
{{cite book| title=Caviare at the Funeral| url=https://archive.org/details/caviareatfuneral0000simp| url-access=registration| publisher=F. Watts| year=1980| isbn=978-0-531-09937-7 }}
{{cite book| title=The Best Hour of the Night| publisher=Ticknor & Fields| year=1983| isbn=978-0-89919-203-1 }}
{{cite book| title=People Live Here: Selected Poems 1949–83| publisher=BOA Editions| year=1983| isbn=978-0-918526-43-4 }}
{{cite book| title=Collected Poems| publisher=Paragon House| year=1988| isbn=978-1-55778-047-8 }}
{{cite book| title=In the Room We Share| publisher=Paragon House| year=1990| isbn=978-1-55778-261-8| url=https://archive.org/details/inroomweshare0000simp}}
{{cite book| title=There You Are: Poems| publisher=Story Line Press| year=1995| isbn=978-1-885266-15-6| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/thereyouarepoems0000simp}}
{{cite book| title=The Owner of the House: New Collected Poems, 1940–2001| url=https://archive.org/details/ownerofhousenewc00simp | url-access=registration| quote=Louis Aston Marantz Simpson.| publisher=BOA Editions, Ltd.| year=2003| isbn=978-1-929918-39-3 }}
{{cite book| title=Struggling Times| url=https://archive.org/details/strugglingtimesp0000simp| url-access=registration| publisher=BOA Editions, Ltd.| year=2009| isbn=9781934414194 }}
{{cite book| title=Voices in the Distance: Selected Poems| publisher=Bloodaxe Books| year=2010| isbn=978-1-85224-861-1| url-access=registration| url=https://archive.org/details/voicesindistance0000simp}}

Translations

{{cite book| title=Modern Poets of France: a bilingual anthology| editor=Louis Aston Marantz| publisher=Story Line Press| year=1997| isbn=978-1-885266-44-6| url=https://archive.org/details/modernpoetsoffra0000simp}}

=Non-fiction=

{{cite book| title=James Hogg: A Critical study| publisher=St. Martin's Press| year=1962 }}
{{cite book| title=An Introduction to Poetry| editor=Louis Aston Marantz Simpson| publisher=Macmillan| year=1968 }}
{{cite book| title=Air with Armed Men| publisher=London Magazine Editions| year=1972}}
{{cite book| title=Three on the Tower| year=1975| publisher=Morrow| isbn=978-0-688-02899-2| url=https://archive.org/details/threeontower00simp}}
{{cite book| title=A Revolution in Taste: Studies of Dylan Thomas, Allen Ginsberg, Sylvia Plath, and Robert Lowell | year=1978| publisher=MacMillan| isbn=978-0-02-611320-5 }}
{{cite book| title=A Company of Poets| publisher=University of Michigan Press| year=1981| isbn=978-0-472-06326-0 }}
{{cite book| title=The Character of the Poet| url=https://archive.org/details/characterofpoet00simp| url-access=registration| publisher=University of Michigan Press| year=1986| isbn=978-0-472-09369-4 }}
{{cite book| title=Selected Prose| publisher=Paragon House| year=1989| isbn=978-1-55778-048-5| url=https://archive.org/details/selectedprose0000simp}}
{{cite book| title=Ships Going Into the Blue: Essays and Notes on Poetry| publisher=University of Michigan Press| year=1994| isbn=978-0-472-09559-9 }}
{{cite book| title=The King My Father's Wreck| publisher=Story Line Press| year=1994| isbn=978-0-934257-09-1 }}

References

External links

{{Archival records|title=Louis Simpson papers, 1922-2011|location= Library of Congress|description_URL=https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/eadmss.ms019007}}

{{wikiquote-inline}}
[http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/louis-simpson/ Poetry Foundation biographical essay and online poems]
[http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/awards-and-poets/shortlists/2004-shortlist/louis-simpson/ Griffin Poetry Prize biography]
[http://www.griffinpoetryprize.com/see-and-hear-poetry/p-z/louis-simpson/ Griffin Poetry Prize reading, including video clip]
[https://archive.today/20130125094754/http://harrisondailytimes.com/articles/2009/11/12/news/doc4afb551d97664204752142.txt Community remembers sacrifices] in Harrison Daily, Harrison, Arkansas

Category:1923 births

Category:20th-century American poets

Category:Columbia Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:Columbia University School of General Studies alumni

Category:2012 deaths

Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners

Category:Stony Brook University faculty

Category:Jamaican emigrants to the United States

Category:French–English translators

Category:United States Army personnel of World War II

Category:Deaths from dementia in New York (state)

Category:Deaths from Alzheimer's disease in New York (state)