Daniel Hoffman

Daniel Gerard Hoffman (b. April 3, 1923) is an American poet, essayist, and academic. He served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress — a position now known as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry — from 1973 to 1974.

Related Topics:
American - Poet - Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry - 1973 - 1974

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Hoffman was born in New York City. During World War II, he served in the Army Air Corps, where he served stateside as a technical writer and on a aeronautical research journal. He was educated at Columbia University, earning an A.B. (1947), an M.A. (1949), and a Ph.D. (1956).

Related Topics:
New York City - World War II - Army Air Corps - Columbia University - 1947 - 1949 - 1956

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In 1954, Hoffman published his first collection of poetry, An Armada of Thirty Whales. This collection was chosen by W.H. Auden as part of the Yale Series of Younger Poets, and Auden commended it in his introduction as "providing a new direction for nature poetry in the post-Wordsworthian world." He has since published ten additional collections of poetry, a memoir, and seven volumes of criticism.

Related Topics:
1954 - W.H. Auden - Yale Series of Younger Poets

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Hoffman has taught at Columbia University, Swarthmore College, and the University of Pennsylvania. He retired from the latter as Felix Schelling Professor of English Emeritus, and its Philomathean Society in 1996 published an anthology of poetry in honor of his efforts to bring contemporary poets to give readings in their halls. He is a chancellor emeritus of the Academy of American Poets. From 1988 to 1999, he served as Poet in Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, where he administered the American Poets' Corner.

Related Topics:
Swarthmore College - University of Pennsylvania - Philomathean Society - 1996 - Academy of American Poets - 1988 - 1999 - Cathedral of St. John the Divine - American Poets' Corner

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Awards Hoffman has won include the Hazlett Memorial Award, the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry from The Sewanee Review, the Memorial Medal of the Maygar P.E.N. for his translations of contemporary Hungarian poetry, the 2005 Arthur Rense Poetry Prize "for an exceptional poet" from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and several grants and fellowships, including those from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Related Topics:
2005 - American Academy of Arts and Letters - Guggenheim Foundation - National Endowment for the Humanities

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Hoffman lives with his wife in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania.

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