Not for Specialists

Poet W. D. Snodgrass was born on January 5, 1926. After serving as a Navy typist during World War II, he received bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Iowa. With the publication of Heart's Needle (1959) a collection of confessional poetry that won the 1960 Pulitzer Prize, Snodgrass gained immediate fame as one of the best poets to come out of the 1950s. Snodgrass's later poetry is much less directly personal, as he learned to deal with some of the major historical events of his time. His wrote more than 30 books of poetry, criticism and translations including After Experience (1967) and The Fuehrer Bunker (1977). He taught at numerous colleges including Cornell University, Wayne State University and the University of Delaware. He died from lung cancer on January 13, 2009 at the age of 83.

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