Paul Hamilton Engle was an American poet, writer, translator, professor, and director of the Writers’ Workshop and the International Writing Program at the University of Iowa. He was the author of more than a dozen collections of poetry, a novel, a memoir, an opera libretto, for Philip Bezanson, and even a children's book. Engle wrote numerous articles and reviews for many of the largest periodicals of his day.
Background
Engle, Paul Hamilton was born on October 12, 1908 in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States; the third of four children of Thomas Allen Engle and Evelyn (Reinheimer) Engle. He was raised in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and his literary imagination was shaped by life in a small city and on the family farm outside Marion, Iowa, United States.
Education
Paul Engle attended public schools in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. He graduated from Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States. In 1931 he graduated from Coe College in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, United States.
In 1932, at the State University of Iowa, Paul became one of the first to submit a creative thesis for his master’s degree, a collection of poems, The Worn Earth, which won the prestigious Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. In the same year, he was awarded a fellowship to Columbia University, which was followed by a Rhodes Scholarship to Merton College at Oxford University, the first of a series of decisive encounters with foreign societies, some of which he recorded in his third book of poems, Break the Heart’s Anger, 1936.
While attending public schools in Cedar Rapids, Paul earned money in a variety of ways, including a seven-year stint as a soda jerk in a drugstore, which carried literary journals for him to read when there were no customers. He was writing poetry by the time he entered Coe College, from which he graduated in 1931.
In Berlin, in the wake of Hitler’s rise to power, he met a Jewish bookseller, who gave him a shelf of fine editions by the German poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and asked him to help secure his teenage daughter’s escape from Germany. But Engle’s letter to him was returned, stamped Disappeared, a failure that haunted him. Engle would make his mark on the literary world not only through his writings but by helping writers at every stage of their career, some of whom were in grave danger.
In 1936 Paul married Mary Nomine Nissen. After their honeymoon in the Soviet Union, he wrote a long poem, “Russia,” in which he described some of the consequences of the Bolshevik Revolution, its anger, shadows, and “grim birth.” The Engles were more fortunate in their offspring. Upon their return to Iowa he took a position in the English Department at the State University of Iowa, and in 1941 he became the director of the Writers’ Workshop. In his 25 years at the helm, during which he invited such notable writers to teach as Robert Lowell, John Berryman, and Kurt Vonnegut, he pioneered the teaching of creative writing. Indeed, he claimed to have helped, “with money and sympathy, more young American and foreign writers than anyone else in this country.” It was not an idle boast. Among his students were Flannery O’Connor, Phillip Levine, and Donald Justice. The spectacular growth of creative writing programs in this country and abroad is his legacy to the world of letters.
In 1967 Paul Engle and his future second wife, the Chinese novelist Nieh Hualing, founded the International Writing Program, which brings well-known writers from around the world to the University of Iowa for a unique residency. For 20 years they hosted what one writer affectionately described as “a narrative nursery,” providing space and time for writers to do their own work. For their efforts on behalf of oppressed writers, and for the common ground they discovered with writers from every land, Paul and Hualing were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1976.
Writing in what he called the “long trade winds of American speech,” Engle published volumes of poetry, a novel, a libretto, and hundreds of articles and reviews. He edited important anthologies of poetry and fiction, translated many poets, and gave lectures and readings around the world. He died in Chicago’s O’Hare Airport, on March 22, 1991, en route to Poland to receive an award for his contributions to literature.
Quotations:
“All poetry is an ordered voice,” Paul said, “one which tries to tell you about a vision in the unvisionary language of farm, city and love.”
“We were devout Protestants who believed that people were put on this earth to work and to pray,” Paul wrote.
Membership
Paul was a member of Phi Kappa Phi, Phi Gamma Delta, Advising committee John F. Kennedy Cultural Center, Washington. He was a participant of Christmas Heritage Program, Public Broadcasting Service, in 1978.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
In 1967 Vonnegut described Engle in a letter in this fashion: "The former head, Paul Engle, is still around, is a hayseed clown, a foxy grandpa, a terrific promoter, who, if you listen closely, talks like a man with a paper asshole".
Connections
On July 3, 1936, Paul married Mary Nomine Nissen. They had two daughters, Mary and Sara. Later, he married Hualing Nieh, on May 14, 1971.
Father:
Tomas Allen Engle
Mother:
Evelyn (Reinheimer) Engle
Spouse:
Hualing Nieh
Daughter:
Mary Engle
Daughter:
Sara Engle
ex-spouse:
Mary Nomine Nissen
References
The Biographical Dictionary of Iowa
Iowa has been blessed with citizens of strong character who have made invaluable contributions to the state and to the nation. In the 1930s alone, such towering figures as John L. Lewis, Henry A. Wallace, and Herbert Hoover hugely influenced the nation’s affairs.