Paul Mariani is an American poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

 and a professor at Boston College

Boston College

Boston College is a private Jesuit research university located in the village of Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. The main campus is bisected by the border between the cities of Boston and Newton. It has 9,200 full-time undergraduates and 4,000 graduate students. Its name reflects its early...

. He grew up on Long Island

Long Island

Long Island is an island located in the southeast part of the U.S. state of New York, just east of Manhattan. Stretching northeast into the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island contains four counties, two of which are boroughs of New York City , and two of which are mainly suburban...

, the eldest of seven children. His published work includes biographies: on the confessional poet

Confessional poet

Confessional poetry emphasizes the intimate, and sometimes unflattering, information about details of the poet's personal life, such as in poems about mental illness, sexuality, and despondence. The confessionalist label was applied to a number of poets of the 1950s and 1960s...

s 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...

 (Lost Puritan) and John Berryman

John Berryman

John Allyn Berryman was an American poet and scholar, born in McAlester, Oklahoma. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and was considered a key figure in the Confessional school of poetry...

 (Dream Song); on William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

 (A New World Naked, which was nominated for the American Book Award

American Book Award

The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...

); and, most recently, on the poet Hart Crane

Hart Crane

-Career:Throughout the early 1920s, small but well-respected literary magazines published some of Crane’s lyrics, gaining him, among the avant-garde, a respect that White Buildings , his first volume, ratified and strengthened...

 (The Broken Tower). He has also published six books of poetry: Timing Devices, Crossing Cocytus, Prime Mover, Salvage Operations: New and Selected Poems, The Great Wheel, and Deaths & Transfigurations. His latest book is a biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins

Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. was an English poet, Roman Catholic convert, and Jesuit priest, whose posthumous 20th-century fame established him among the leading Victorian poets...

 (2008).

He has been honored with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...

, the National Endowment for the Arts

National Endowment for the Arts

The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...

, and the National Endowment for the Humanities

National Endowment for the Humanities

The National Endowment for the Humanities is an independent federal agency of the United States established by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965 dedicated to supporting research, education, preservation, and public programs in the humanities. The NEH is located at...

.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Manhattan College in 1962, a Master's from Colgate University, and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York.

Selected works

• Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life. Viking/Penguin (New York, November 2008), 496 pp. Second Printing, November 22, 2008. Editors’ Choice, NYTBR, December 19: “Mariani writes with a deep, sympathetic knowledge of the poet’s sometimes dauntingly esoteric religious and aesthetic concerns.” Washington Post: Best Books of 2008. Favorable reviews in NYTBR, Michael Dirda of The Washington Post, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Atlantic Monthly, Books & Culture, Editors’ Choice, NY Times, The New Yorker (May 11, 2009). Book of the Week.

• Deaths & Transfigurations: Poems. Paraclete Press, July 2005. Designed & with engravings by Barry Moser. 96 pp.
• God and the Imagination: Poetry, Poets, and the Ineffable. University of Georgia Press, July 2002. 285 pp. Hardcover and paperback editions.
• Thirty Days: On Retreat with the Exercises of St. Ignatius. New York: Viking/Penguin, March 2002. 287 pp. Main selection of Catholic Book Club, February 2002. Paperback Ed. March 2003. Catholic Press Association Award, First Place, May 2003.
• The Broken Tower: A Life of Hart Crane. New York: W. W. Norton, 492 pp. April 1999. Main Selection of The Poetry Book Club of The American Academy of American Poets. NY Times Notable Books Paperback edition, April 2000. Ohioana Award for Best Book on Ohio or an Ohioan for 2000. 23 October 2000. James Tait Black Memorial Prize: one of four finalists for biography for 2000.
• The Great Wheel: Poems. New York: W.W. Norton, April 1996, 62 pp. Paperback edition: Norton, December 1997.
• Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994. 527 pp. Paperback Ed. Norton, May 1996.
• Salvage Operations: New and Selected Poems. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. 1990. 185 pp. Paperback edition: Norton, 1991.
• Dream Song: The Life of John Berryman. William Morrow: New York. February 1990. 519 pp. Paperback Ed.: Paragon Books, June 1992. Second paperback Ed. with new introduction: UMass Press, March 1996.
• Prime Mover: Poems. Grove Press, 1985. 108 pp.
• A Usable Past: Essays on Modern & Contemporary Poetry. UMass Press (Amherst, 1984). 268 pp. Essays on Williams, Hopkins, Berryman, Creeley, Montague, Warren, Tomlinson, Merton, and Pack. Introduction & revised essays.
• Crossing Cocytus: Poems. Grove Press, 1982. 94 pp. 2nd printing, 1983.
• William Carlos Williams: A New World Naked. McGraw-Hill, 1981. 874 pp. Two hardcover and two paperback editions. Reviewed, front page of The New York Times Book Review, Los Angeles Times, 12 weeks on Editors’ Choice, NYTBR, nominated for the American Book Awards, category: biography. (Reprinted with changes by W. W. Norton & Co. 1990.)
• Timing Devices: Poems. Pennyroyal Press. Illustrated and designed by Barry Moser. Limited, signed edition, 1978. Trade Ed. David R. Godine of Boston, 1979.
• William Carlos Williams: The Poet and His Critics. American Library Assoc., 1975. 284 pp.
• A Commentary on the Complete Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Cornell University Press, 1970. 361 pp. An MLA Selection.

External Links

• A biography of Paul Mariani provided by Poets.org
• The Gods Who Come Among Us In the Guise of Strangers—poem by Mariani
• http://www.mycentraljersey.com/article/20110414/GETPUBLISHED/104140332/Internationally-Known-Poet-to-Give-Reading-at-Georgian-Court Report of reading given at Georgian Court