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A weekly video reading of poetry by the poet.
Harvey Shapiro, born in Chicago, Illinois, served in the U.S. Air Force from 1943 to 1945, where he was awarded a Distinguished Flying Cross. He received a BA from Yale (1947) and an MA from Columbia (1948). In addition to teaching English at both Cornell University (1949-1952), and as a Creative Writing Fellow at Bard College (1950-1951), Harvey has had a distinguished career as a journalist and editor. He was editor of the New York Times Book Review (1975-83). Harvey worked for many years for the New York Times Magazine as deputy editor.
Influenced by the Objectivist poets, while incorporating some of the elements of the later confessional movement, Shapiro's poems resonate with universal themes of war, marriage, family, and urban tensions. The landscape for his poetry is primarily New York City.
His first collection of poems was The Eye ( Swallow Press, 1953). Other books of Shapiro's poems include Battle Report: Selected Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 1966), This World (Wesleyan, 1971), The Light Holds (Wesleyan, 1984), and National Cold Storage Company: New and Selected Poems (Wesleyan, 1988). His honors include a Swallow Press award (1954) and a Rockefeller Grant.
Review, Interview and Availability of Books:
"The Sights Along the Harbor: New and Collected Poems". Review/essay by David Barber in the New York Times.
Shani R. Friedman interview with Harvey Shapiro as published in “The Villager’.
Many of Harvey Shapiro's books are available at your local bookshop and on the internet.