Coutelier

68097 — Lincoln NE: University of Nebraska Press 1960. Presumed first edition/first printing. Wraps. Good. Signed by previous owner. Cover has wear and soiling. Glued binding. xii 2 64 2 p. Introduction by Karp Shapiro. From a 2001 newspaper obituary posted on-line: "Bruce Cutler 70 an American poet who wrote narrative long poems on subjects ranging from the settling of the American frontier to gangs in Chicago. His first book "The Year of the Green Wave " was published in 1960 and was followed over the next 40 years by a dozen more. His "The Massacre at Sand Creek" told the story of the massacre of hundreds of Cheyenne by the U.S. Cavalry. Published in 1995 and nominated for a National Book Award the poem explained the attack from several points of view including the officer who led the assault an officer who refused to let his men fire on the Indians and the Cheyenne themselves. Born in Evanston Ill. Cutler was a conscientious objector to military service in the early 1950s and after a legal challenge performed alternate service in Mexico and El Salvador. A graduate of the University of Iowa Cutler taught English at Wichita State where he founded the school's creative writing program. Cutler's last book "At War With Mexico: A Fictional Mosaic " came out a week before his death on March 24 in Santa Cruz of complications from kidney cancer." Poems in this volume first appears in periodicals such as THe Antioc Review Canadian Forum Kansas Magazine etc. From Wikipedia: "Karl Jay Shapiro November 10 1913 May 14 2000 was an American poet. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946. Karl Shapiro was born in Baltimore Maryland. He attended the University of Virginia before World War II and immortalized it in a scathing poem called "University " which noted that "to hate the Negro and avoid the Jew is the curriculum." He did not return after his military service. Karl Shapiro a stylish writer with a commendable regard for his craft wrote poetry in the Pacific Theater while he served there during World War II. His collection V-Letter and Other Poems written while Shapiro was stationed in New Guinea was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 while Shapiro was still in the military. Shapiro was American Poet Laureate in 1946 and 1947. At the time this title was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress which was changed by Congress in 1985 to Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Poems from his earlier books display a mastery of formal verse with a modern sensibility that viewed such topics as automobiles house flies and drug stores as worthy of attention. In his later work he experimented with more open forms beginning with The Bourgeois Poet 1964 and continuing with White-Haired Lover 1968. The influences of Walt Whitman D. H. Lawrence W. H. Auden and William Carlos Williams were evident in his work. Shapiro's interest in formal verse and prosody led to his writing multiple books on the subject including the long poem Essay on Rime 1945 A Bibliography of Modern Prosody 1948 and A Prosody Handbook with Robert Beum 1965; reissued 2006. His Selected Poems appeared in 1968. Shapiro also published one novel Edsel 1971 and a three-part autobiography simply titled "Poet" 1988 1990. Shapiro edited the prestigious magazine Poetry for several years and he was a professor of English at the University of Nebraska Lincoln where he edited Prairie Schooner and at the University of California Davis from which he retired in the mid-1980s. His other works include Person Place and Thing 1942 with Ernst Lert the libretto to Hugo Weisgall's opera The Tenor 1950 To Abolish Children 1968 and The Old Horsefly 1993. Shapiro received the 1969 Bollingen Prize for Poetry sharing the award that year with John Berryman. He died in New York City aged 86 on May 14 2000." University of Nebraska Press paperback