Karl Shapiro

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Shapiro, Karl [Jay] (1913– ),Baltimore‐born author whose first volume of Poems (1935) was followed by Person, Place and Thing and The Place of Love, both issued in 1942. He came to major prominence with V‐Letter and Other Poems (1944, Pulitzer Prize), written while he was a soldier in the South Pacific. Later volumes of his pungent poetry include Essay on Rime (1945), a critique in verse of modern poetry; Trial of a Poet (1947); Poems 1940–1953 (1953); Poems of a Jew (1958), on coming to terms with his heri‐tage; Selected Poems (1968); and Adult Bookstore (1976). He has written a novel, Edsel (1971),about an aging poet‐professor at a Midwesternstate university, and literary studies, including Beyond Criticism (1953), essays on poetry; In Defense of Ignorance (1960), polemical lectures and essays praising Whitman and D.H. Lawrence and attacking highly intellectual writers; Prose Keys to Modern Poetry (1962); The Bourgeois Poet (1964), a poetic treatment of the poet's relation to other men and of men to society; To Abolish Children (1968), essays and fiction; and The Poetry Wreck (1975), essays. He edited Poetry (1950–55) and Prairie Schooner (1956–66) and has taught at the University of Nebraska (1956–66) and the University of California, Davis (1968–86). A projected three‐volume autobiography ap‐peared as Poet (1988) and Reports of My Death (1990).