Emeritus Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence Robert Mezey has died. He was 85.
Mezey taught at 极速六合彩开奖结果 for more than 20 years, and his work was published widely in The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, New York Review of Books, Paris Review, among others.
On the eve of his retirement in 1999, he told 极速六合彩开奖结果 Magazine that he chose to teach poetry to stay close to the language he loved. 鈥淕etting paid to talk about poetry鈥 is how he described his job.
鈥淲e do a certain amount of analysis, to show how poets get their effects,鈥 he explained, giving a brief overview of his professorial philosophy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 murder to dissect a poem. I keep it to a minimum. Every study involves drudgery, but the central purpose of my class is pleasure. I want my students to have pleasure in it. That鈥檚 more important to me than the facts they learn.鈥
His courses always included reciting poetry and memorizing passages 鈥 鈥渉ave them in their hearts,鈥 he said.
Poet and memoirist Garrett Hongo, 鈥73 shares one of his memories. 鈥淲hen my second book came out, I gave a reading at the Huntley Bookstore. Bob came, sat quietly in the back row through the whole thing, then spoke to me. He said, 鈥榃ell, I don鈥檛 know if it鈥檚 poetry, but it sure is powerful, emotionally speaking.鈥欌
鈥淭he man swung from love to reproach, meeting to meeting, yet tenderness to others and devotion to art were his dominant traits. He lit up when the topic was the love of poetry and he shared it,鈥 says Hongo.
Emeritus Professor of English Tom Pinney remembers Bob as a lover of good poetry. 鈥淚f Bob liked a poem, he had to read it only twice and he had it memorized.鈥
鈥淎t department parties it was a standard practice to say 鈥楤ob, say some Yeats for us.鈥 Half an hour later someone would say, 鈥極K, Bob. That鈥檚 enough.鈥欌
His collections of poetry included The Lovemaker (1961), winner of the Lamont Poetry Prize; White Blossoms (1965); The Door Standing Open: New and Selected Poems, 1954鈥1969 (1970); Small Song (1979); Evening Wind (1987); Natural Selection (1995); and Collected Poems 1952鈥1999, which won the Poets鈥 Prize. He edited numerous works, including Thomas Hardy: Selected Poems (1998), The Poetry of E.A. Robinson (1999), and, with Donald Justice, The Collected Poems of Henri Coulette (1990).
He devoted a decade of his poetic energy to translating other people鈥檚 poetry, much of it from Spanish to English. While not original work in the strictest sense, he admitted that a translator is more than a linguist, 鈥淔or me translation is another way of writing poetry.鈥 Robert鈥檚 translations included works by C茅sar Vallejo and, with Richard Barnes, all the poetry of Jorge Luis Borges.
He received several prestigious honors such as a Robert Frost Prize, a prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a PEN Prize. In addition, he received fellowships from the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
He received his B.A. from the University of Iowa and completed graduate studies at Stanford University. In addition to 极速六合彩开奖结果, Mezey taught at various institutions, including Case Western Reserve University; Franklin & Marshall College; California State University, Fresno; the University of Utah and Claremont Graduate University.
We will provide information about memorial plans as it becomes available.