Frederick Seidel
Encyclopedia
Career
In 1962, his first book, Final Solutions, was chosen by a jury of Louise BoganLouise Bogan
Louise Bogan was an American poet. She was appointed the fourth Poet Laureate to the Library of Congress in 1945.-Early years:...
, Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Kunitz
Stanley Jasspon Kunitz was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000.-Biography:...
, and Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
for an award sponsored by the 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
, with a $1,500 prize. However, both the association and the publisher rejected the manuscript for a variety of reasons; one being that, in their opinion, "matter in one of the poems libeled a noted living person";
and another being that the national head of the YMHA/YWHA expressed concern that some of the poems were "anti-Semitic and anti-Catholic," a claim Seidel considered preposterous. When Seidel refused to make requested changes to his work, the prize was withdrawn and the promise of publication revoked. Bogan, Kunitz, and Lowell also resigned in protest.
This incident, in which Seidel's poetry offended readers, was a defining moment in his career, and one that he would repeat in subsequent books by consciously trying to offend--or at least, to shock--his readers (although none of his subsequent books caused anywhere near the same degree of controversy that his first book did).
Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
published the book the following year, but seventeen years would pass before Seidel published another work. His second book, Sunrise, was the 1980 Lamont Poetry Selection. His book Going Fast was a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
Pulitzer Prize for Poetry
The Pulitzer Prize in Poetry has been presented since 1922 for a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author. However, special citations for poetry were presented in 1918 and 1919.-Winners:...
.
His collection, The Cosmos Poems, was commissioned by the American Museum of Natural History
American Museum of Natural History
The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world...
to celebrate the opening of the new Hayden Planetarium
Hayden Planetarium
The Hayden Planetarium is a public planetarium, part of the Rose Center for Earth and Space of the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, currently directed by astrophysicist Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson....
in 2000, and he won the PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry
PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry
The PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry is given biennially to an American poet whose distinguished and growing body of work to date represents a notable and accomplished presence in American literature.Awardees:...
in 2002. His collection Ooga-Booga was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and was shortlisted for the 2007 International Griffin Poetry Prize
Griffin Poetry Prize
The Griffin Poetry Prize is Canada's most generous poetry award. It was founded in 2000 by businessman and philanthropist Scott Griffin. The awards go to one Canadian and one international poet who writes in the English language....
. A limited run of his most recent collection of new verse, Evening Man was published in 2008. The following year saw the publication of the career-spanning anthology Poems:1959-2009.
Style
In response to the publication of his Collected Poems, the New York Times magazine wrote a long piece on the poet, calling Seidel the "Laureate of the Louche," and Seidel has earned similar labels from other journalists.For instance, New York Times book reviewer David Orr, in his review of Poems: 1959-2009, wrote, "[Seidel is] one of poetry's few scary characters." Seidel is frequently characterized as such, in part, because, in his writing, he often makes use of violent and disturbing sexual imagery and presents himself as a rather unlikeable aesthete who embraces his own "elite" brand of materialism (extolling, for instance, his love of Ducati motorcycles and handmade shoes). However, Seidel often ironizes this persona, pushing it to cartoonish extremes.
Seidel's poetry isn't only about his outrageous poetic persona. He also writes poems that comment on contemporary events and are political/satirical (as is his poem "Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
's War"). His work is also notable in that he frequently makes use of rhyme and meter (both regular and irregular). One of Seidel's earliest influences was Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
. Seidel has stated that, "the influence of Lowell [in his first book Final Solutions was] unmistakable." However, the critic Richard Poirier
Richard Poirier
Richard Poirier was an American literary critic.He co-founded the Library of America, and served as chairman of its board. He was the Marius Bewley Professor of American and English Literature at Rutgers University...
noted that Seidel had broken free of this influence by the time that he published his second book, Sunrise.
Works
- Final Solutions (New York: Random House, 1963)
- Sunrise (New York: Viking Press, 1979)
- Men and Woman: New and Selected Poems (London: Chatto & Windus, 1984)
- Poems, 1959-1979 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)
- These Days (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989)
- My Tokyo (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1993)
- Going Fast (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1998)
- The Cosmos Poems (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2000)
- Life on Earth (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2001)
- Area Code 212 (New York, Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2002)
- The Cosmos Trilogy (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2003)
- Ooga-Booga (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2006)
- Evening Man (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2008)
- Collected Poems: 1959-2009 (New York: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 2009)