Background
Davison, Peter Hubert was born on June 27, 1928 in New York City. Son of Edward and Natalie (Weiner) Davison.
("A beautiful and richly instructive book, a worthy and we...)
"A beautiful and richly instructive book, a worthy and welcome sequel to Eileen Simpson's Poets in Their Youth." Louis S. Auchincloss An intimately perceptive account, by a poet who knew them all, of the brilliant circle of poets who lived and worked in Boston through the half-decade beginning in 1955. That was the year Peter Davison, coming to Boston as a book editor. was swept up in a world -- in a tumult -- of poetry. He rediscovered his father's old friend Robert Frost. He briefly squired Sylvia Plath. He came to know Robert Lowell (whose poems and private disasters dominated the period) and Adrienne Rich, Stanley Kunitz, Richard Wilbur. Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, and others who, closely bound together in friendship or rivalry or both, defined the shape of American poetry at mid-century Through their eves as well as his own, and often in their words, Davison presents a sharply fresh vision of the shift from confidence to a troubled questioning that overtook America -- a transformation that was, in a sense, foreshadowed in the sensibilities, in the writings, sometimes in the lives, of some of our finest poets.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679406581/?tag=2022091-20
(The poetry of Peter Davison, of which this is the ninth v...)
The poetry of Peter Davison, of which this is the ninth volume, covers a broad range of subject matter. Musical and supple, with rewards for the eye, the ear, and the mind, concerned as much with country as with city matters, Davison's poems move past personality. They open questions of identity, explorations of the natural world, personal and religious conflict, and the mysterious workings of memory. His poetry, such as the long poem "The Great Ledge," is especially moving and powerful when read aloud. Though Davison is perhaps most widely known as an editor of poetry, his poems are neither academic nor exclusive. John Hall Wheelock wrote, after Davison's earliest book won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1963, "With Peter Davison, feeling has come back into poetry." May Swenson, reviewing his second book, said: "There is a savage self-revelation and deep understanding of the hearts and minds of others." Alfred Kazin spoke of "the bone-sharp integrity of Davison's poetry, with its notable openness to difficulties, both personal and historic." When Davison's fourth book was published in Great Britain, John Fuller wrote, "What an assured talent is here revealed! It is a splendidly accessible body of work," and Robert Penn Warren concurred: "He has found a new depth and force...He has splendidly found himself...himself and his way." Vernon Young called him, in Parnassus, "one of the few poets of the first order writing in English today," and James Dickey said, Peter Davison's quiet, deep poems are among the best being written. Any thoughtful reader will be moved by his clear, unpretentious writing, his imaginative participation in life, his passionate balance." Jay Parini, in Virginia Quarterly, called Davison "one of America's finest contemporary poets, whose sharpness of vision and candor leave the reader breathless," and Phoebe Pettingell, in The New Leader, said, "Peter Davison's verse illuminates the commonplace with a mystical sense of the divine revealed in nature." This volume, combining Davison's most recent work with all the earlier poems he wishes to preserve, reveals a poet in his late middle age writing out of the midst of a life both active and contemplative, yet given over to poetry. He is a worthy heir to the passionate poetic tradition of Thomas Hardy and Robert Frost. From the Hardcover edition.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679765891/?tag=2022091-20
( “No one has attempted so knowing and evocative a descri...)
“No one has attempted so knowing and evocative a description of this literary milieu. . . . Davidson’s approach is both novel and illuminating. He presents his authors individually and as a group, carefully tracing their relation to one another. . . . He is uniquely qualified to chronicle the complex story. He is the ultimate literary Boston insider—not only the longtime poetry editor for the Atlantic Montly but successively a key editor at three major publishing houses. The author of nine volumes of poetry, he knew all the major characters of his narrative personally. . . . His book provides a candid, first-hand account of the mid-century poetic revolution.” —Dana Gioia, Washington Post Book World This extraordinary account, by a participant who knew them all, offers vivid reminiscences of Robert Lowell, Adrienne Rich, Stanley Kunitz, Sylvia Plath, Richard Wilbur, Anne Sexton, W. S. Merwin, and many others who interacted with each other and shaped American poetry at mid-century.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393313581/?tag=2022091-20
Davison, Peter Hubert was born on June 27, 1928 in New York City. Son of Edward and Natalie (Weiner) Davison.
Bachelor of Arts magna cum laude, Harvard University, 1949; Fulbright scholar, St. John's College, Cambridge (England) University, 1949-1950.
Page, United States Senate, 1944;
assistant editor, Harcourt, Brace & Company, 1950-1951, 53-55;
assistant to director, Harvard University Press, 1955-1956;
associate editor, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1956-1959;
executive editor, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1959-1964;
director, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1964-1979;
senior editor, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1979-1985;
poetry editor, Atlantic Monthly, since 1972;
editor Peter Davison Books, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1985-1998;
poetry editor, Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, 1985-1998. Member of advisory board National Translate Center, 1965-1968. Policy panelist in literature National Endowment for Arts, 1980-1983.
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, 1989-1990.
("A beautiful and richly instructive book, a worthy and we...)
(The poetry of Peter Davison, of which this is the ninth v...)
(The poetry of Peter Davison, of which this is the ninth v...)
( “No one has attempted so knowing and evocative a descri...)
(Book by Davison, Peter)
(Book by Davison, Peter)
Trustee Fountain Valley School, 1967-1975. Member corporation Yaddo, 1978–2004. Served with Army of the United States, 1951-1953.
Fellow American Academy Arts and Science. Member Phi Beta Kappa. Clubs: Examiner, St Botolph (Boston).
Harvard (New York City).
Son of Edward and Natalie (Weiner) D. M. Jane Auchincloss Truslow, March 7, 1959 (deceased July 1981). Children: Edward Angus, Lesley Truslow.
M. Joan Edelman Goody, August 11, 1984.