Edwin Arlington Robinson - The Pulitzer Prize Poetry

The Pultizer Prize Poetry Of Edwin Arlington Robinson

Poetry is a fascinating use of language. With almost a million words at its command it is not surprising that the English language have produced some of the most beautiful, moving and descriptive verse through the centuries. In this series we look at individual poets who have shaped and influenced their craft and cement their place in our heritage. In this volume we look at the works of Edwin Arlington Robinson who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry three times including the very first ever awarded.

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on December 22, 1869 in Tide in Lincoln County, Maine.

His childhood was described by him as stark and unhappy. His name was drawn out of a hat from a fellow vacationer from Arlington, Massachusetts when fellow holiday makers decided that his parents had waited long enough, at 6 months, to name him. It was a name he despised and reflects the station to which his parents had placed him; their great hope at his birth was for a girl to complement their two sons.

His pessimistic mood followed him to adulthood and a doomed encounter with Emma Loehen Shepherd who encouraged his poetry. Edwin was thought too young to be her companion and so his elder, middle brother, Herman was assigned to her. It was a great blow to Edwin and during their marriage on February 12 th 1890 he stayed home and wrote Cortege

In the fall of 1891 Edwin entered Harvard, taking classes in English, French and Shakespeare. He felt at ease with the Ivy League and made great efforts to be published in one of the Harvard literary journals. Indeed the Harvard Advocate published Ballade Of A Ship but then his career appeared to stall. His father died and although he returned to Harvard for a second year it was to be his last but also the start of some life long friendships..

In 1893 he returned to Gardiner, Maine as the man of the household. Herman by this time had become an alcoholic, having suffered business failures, and now became estranged from Emma.

Edwin began farming whilst he wrote and quickly developed a close relationship with Emma who had now moved back to Gardiner, after Hermans death, with her children.

Although he proposed twice he was rejected and in consequence moved to New York to start afresh.

But it was a salutary experience. Although surrounded by artists he had little money and life was difficult.

In 1896 he published his own book, The Torrent And The Night Before, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Edwin wanted it to be a surprise for his Mother but days before its arrival she died of diphtheria.

His second volume, The Children Of The Night, had a wider circulation. At the behest of President Roosevelt, whose son was an avid admirer, he was given a job in 1905 at the New York Customs Office although it appears his real job was to help American letters.

Either way his success began to widen and his influence proper. During the 1920s he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three separate occasions. In 1922 for Collected Poems again in 1925 for The Man Who Died Twice and finally in 1928 for Tristram.

It was a great feat to be so highly honoured and recognized.

During the last twenty years of his life he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where he became the object of fascination and deep affection for several women. But he never married.

Edwin Arlington Robinson died of cancer on April 6, 1935 in the New York Hospital

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Index Of Poems

Aaron Stark

Afterthoughts

Alma Mater

Amaryllis

An Evangelists Wife

An Island

An Old Story

Another Dark Lady

Archibalds Example

As a World Would Have It

A Song At Shannons

Athertons Gambit

Aunt Imogen

Avons Harvest

Ballade By The Fire

Ballade Of Broken Flutes

Ben Jonson Entertains A Man From Stratford

Ben Trovato

Bewick Finzer

Bokardo

Bon Voyage

Boston

But For The Grace Of God

Calvary

Calverlys

Captain Craig

Caput Mortuum

Cassandra

Charles Carvilles Eyes

Clavering

Cliff Klingenhagen

Cortge

Credo

Dear Friends

Demos

Discovery

Doctor Of Billiards

Erasmus

Eros Turannos

Exit

Firelight

Flammonde

Fleming Helphenstine

For A Dead Lady

For Arvia

Fragment

George Crabbe

Her Eyes

Hillcrest

Horace To Leucono

How Annandale Went Out

Inferential

Isaac And Archibald

Job The Rejected

John Brown

John Evereldown

John Gorham

Lancelot

Late Summer

Lazarus

Leffingwell

Lenvoy

Leonora

Lingard And The Stars

Lisette And Eileen

Llewellyn And The Tree

London Bridge

Lost Anchors

Luke Havergal

Many Are Called

Merlin

Miniver Cheevy

Modernities

Momus

Monadnock Through The Trees

Mr. Floods Party

Neighbors

Nimmo

Octaves

Old Trails

Old King Cole

On the Night Of A Friends Wedding

On the Way

Partnership

Pasa Thalassa Thalassa

Peace on Earth

Rahel To Varnhagen

Recalled

Rembrandt To Rembrandt

Reuben Bright

Richard Corey

Sainte-Nitouche

Shadrach OLeary

Siege Perilous

Sonnet

Sonnet

Sonnet

Souvenir

Staffords Cabin

Supremacy

Tact

Tasker Norcross

The Altar

The Book Of Annandale

The Burning Book

The Chorus Of Old Men In geus

The Clerks

The Clinging Vine

The Companion

The Corridor

The Dark Hills

The Dark House

The Dead Village

The False Gods

The Field Of Glory

The Flying Dutchman

The Garden

The Gift of God

The Growth Of Lorraine

The House On The Hill

The Klondike

The Long Race

The Man Against The Sky

The Master

The Mill

The New Tenants

The Old Kings New Jester

The Pilot

The Pity Of The Leaves

The Poor Relation

The Rat

The Return Of Morgan And Fingal

The Revealer

The Sage

The Story Of The Ashes And The Flame

The Sunken Crown

The Tavern

The Three Taverns

The Torrent

The Town Down The River

The Tree In Pamelas Garden

The Unforgiven

The Valley Of The Shadow

The Voice Of Age

The Wandering Jew

The Whip

The White Lights

The Wilderness

The Wise Brothers

The Woman And The Wife

Theophilus

Thomas Hood

Three Quatrains

Twilight Song

Two Gardens In Linndale

Two Men

Two Quatrains

Two Sonnets

Uncle Ananias

Vain Gratuities

Variations Of Greek Themes

Verlaine

Veteran Sirens

Vickerys Mountain

Villanelle of Change

Zola

Aaron Stark

Withal a meagre man was Aaron Stark,
Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose.
A miser was he, with a miser's nose,
And eyes like little dollars in the dark.
His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark;
And when he spoke there came like sullen blows
Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close,
As if a cur were chary of its bark.
Glad for the murmur of his hard renown,
Year after year he shambled through the town,
A loveless exile moving with a staff;
And oftentimes there crept into his ears
A sound of alien pity, touched with tears,
And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.