ROBERT BLY
was born in Western Minnesota in 1926 to parents of Norwegian stock.
He enlisted in the Navy in 1944 and spent two years there. After one
year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota, he transferred to Harvard and
thereby joined the famous group of writers who were undergraduates
at that time, which included Donald Hall, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Koch,
John Ashbery, Harold Brodkey, George Plimpton, and John Hawkes.
He graduated in 195o and spent the next few years in New York living,
as they say, hand to mouth. Beginning in 1954, he took two years at
the University of Iowa at the Writers Workshop along with W. D. Snod-
grass, Donald Justice, and others. In 1956 he received a Fulbright grant
to travel to Norway and translate Norwegian poetry into English.
While there he found not only his relatives but the work of a number
of major poets whose force was not present in the United States,
among them Pablo Neruda, Cesar Vallejo, Gunnar Ekelof, Georg
Trakl and Harry Martinson. He determined then to start a literar
magazine for poetry translation in the United States and so begin
The Fifties and The Sixties and The Seventies, which introduced
many of these poets to the writers of his generation, and published
as well essays on American poets and insults to those deserving.
During this time he lived on a farm in Minnesota with his wife and
children. In 1966 he co-founded American Writers Against the
Vietnam War and led much of the opposition among writers to that
war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around
the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance.
During the 70s he published eleven books of poetry, essays,
and translations, celebrating the power of myth, Indian ecstatic
poetry, meditation, and storytelling. During the 80s he published
Lving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Winged Life: Selected Poems
and Prose of Thoreau, The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A
Little Book on the Human Shadow. His work Iron John: A Book
About Men is an international bestseller which has been translated
into many languages. He frequently does workshops for men with
James Hillman and others, and workshops for men and women
with Marion Woodman. He and his wife Ruth, along with the
storyteller Gioia Timpanelli, frequently conduct seminars on
European fairy tales. In the early 90s, with James Hillman
and Michael Meade, he edited The Rag and Bone Shop of
the Heart, an anthology of poems from the men's work.
Since then he has edited The Darkness Around Us Is Deep:
Selected Poems of William Stafford, and The Soul Is Here
for Its Own Joy, a collection of sacred poetry from many
cultures. Recent books of poetry include What Have I Ever
Lost by Dying?, Collected Prose Poems and Meditations
on the Insatiable Soul, both published by HarperCollins.
His second large prose book, The Sibling Society, published
by Addison-Wesley in hardcover and Vintage in paperback,
is the subject of nation-wide discussion. His collection Morning
Poems (HarperCollins), named for William Stafford's practice of
writing a poem each morning, revisits the Western Minnesota
farm country of Bly's boyhood with marvelous wit and warmth.
He has recently published The Maiden King: The Reunion of
Masculine and Feminine (Henry Holt) in collaboration with
Marion Woodman. His new selected poems, Eating the Honey
of Words, has recently appeared from Harper Flamingo, as
well as his translations of Ghalib, The Lightning Should Have
Fallen on Ghalib (with Sunil Dutta) from Ecco Press. He has
also edited the prestigious Best American Poetry 1999 (Scribners).
In 2ooo he won the McKnight Foundation's Distinguished Artist Award.
A book of poems, The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, was
published by HarperCollins, 2oo1, and his selected translations,
The Winged Energy of Delight, appeared from HarperCollins in
2oo4. He has recently published The Insanity of Empire: A Book
of Poems Against the Iraq War (Ally Press). In 2oo5 HarperCollins
published his second book of ghazals, My Sentence Was a
Thousand Years of Joy.
/
ROBERT BLY
wurde 1926 in Minnesota geboren; seine Eltern waren norwegischer
Abstammung. Marinesoldat von 1944 bis 1946. Nach einem Jahr
am St. Olaf College in Minnesota studierte er bis 195o in Harvard.
Die nächsten Jahre verbrachte er, von der Hand in den Mund lebend,
in New York. Von 1954 bis 1956 im Writers Workshop der University
of Iowa, dann erhielt er ein Fulbright-Stipendium, um nach Norwegen
zu reisen und norwegische Lyrik ins Englische zu übersetzen. Nach
seiner Rückkehr lebte er mit Frau und Kindern auf einer Farm in
Minnesota. Er gab eine Zeitschrift für Lyrik-Übersetzung heraus.
Ab 1966 war er als Mitbegründer des Vereins Amerikanische
Schriftsteller gegen den Vietnamkrieg politisch aktiv; als er den
National Book Award erhielt, stiftete er das Preisgeld für die
Friedensarbeit. Häufig leitet er, mit James Hillman, Workshops
für Männer und, mit Marion Woodman, Workshops für Männer
und Frauen. Mit seiner Frau Ruth und der Märchenerzählerin
Gioia Timpanelli veranstaltet er Seminare über europäische
Märchen.
BIBLIOGRAPHIE:
LYRIK:
Silence In the Snowy Fields, Wesleyan University Press, Middletown 1962
The Light Around the Body, HarperCollins, New York 1967
Water Under the Earth, The Sceptre Press, Rushden 1972
Sleepers Joining Hands, HarperCollins, New York 1973
Jumping Out of Bed, White Pine Press, Fredonia 1973 (und 1987)
Old Man Rubbing His Eyes, Ally Press, St. Paul 1975
The Morning Glory, Kayak, Santa Cruz
This Body Is Made of Camphor and Gopherwood, HarperCollins, New York 1977
This Tree Will Be Here for a Thousand Years, HarperCollins, New York 1979 (und 1992)
The Man in the Black Coat Turns, HarperCollins, New York 1981
Four Ramages, Barnwood Press, Daleville 1983
Out of the Rolling Ocean & other love poems, Ally Press, St. Paul 1984
Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, HarperCollins, New York 1985
Selected Poems, HarperCollins, New York 1986
The Apple Found in the Plowing, Haw River Books, Baltimore 1989
Angels of Pompeii, Ballantine, New York 1992
What Have I Ever Lost by Dying? HarperCollins, New York 1993
Gratitude to Old Teachers, BOA Editions, Brockport 1993
Meditations on the Insatiable Soul, HarperCollins, New York 1994
Morning Poems, HarperCollins, New York 1997
Holes the Crickets Have Eaten in Blankets, BOA Editions, Rochester 1997
Eating the Honey of Words, New and Selected Poems, HarperCollins, New York 2ooo
The Night Abraham Called to the Stars, HarperCollins, New York 2oo2
The Insanity of Empire, A book of poems against the Iraq War, Ally Press, St. Paul 2oo4
My Sentence Was a Thousand Years of Joy, HarperCollins, New York 2oo5
The Urge to Travel Long Distances, Eastern Washington University Press, 2oo5
ESSAYS:
Leaping Poetry, Beacon Press, Boston 1975
Talking All Morning, The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor 198o
The Eight Stages of Translation, Ally Press, St. Paul 1983
Fifties / Sixties, Reprint Series, issues 1-1o, Hobart and William Smith,
Geneva, NY 1984
The Winged Life: The Poetic Voice of Henry David Thoreau,
HarperCollins, New York 1986
The Pillow and the Key, Ally Press, St. Paul 1987
A Little Book on the Human Shadow, HarperCollins, New York 1988
American Poetry: Wildness and Domesticity, HarperCollins, New York 199o
When a Hair Turns Gold, Ally Press, St. Paul 1989
Iron John: A Book About Men, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA 199o
Remembering James Wright, Ally Press, St. Paul 1991
The Sibling Society, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA 1996
The Maiden King: The Reunion of Masculine and Feminine (with Marion
Woodman), Henry Holt, New York 1998
The Other Within: The Genius of Deformity in Myth, Culture and Psyche
(with Daniel Deardorff), White Cloud Press, 2oo5
ÜBERSETZUNGEN:
Knut Hamsun: Hunger, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, New York 1967
Gedichte von Pablo Neruda, César Vallejo, Miguel Hernández,
Kabir, Rolf Jacobsen, Antonio Machado, Tomas
Tranströmer, Rumi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Göran Sonnevi,
Mirabai, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Lorca, Olav H. Hauge,
Francis Ponge, Ghalib,...
The Winged Energy of Delight: Selected Translations, HarperCollins,
New York 2oo4
VON ROBERT BLY HERAUSGEGEBEN (AUSWAHL):
News of the Universe, Poems of Twofold Consciousness, Sierra Club, San
Francisco 198o (und 1995)
The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart: Poems for Men (with James
Hillman and Michael Meade), HarperCollins, New York 1992
The Darkness Around Us Is Deep: Selected Poems of William Stafford,
HarperCollins, New York 1993
The Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy: Sacred Poems from Many Cultures, Ecco Press, 1997
The Best American Poetry 1999, Scribner, New York 1999
BÜCHER ÜBER ROBERT BLY (AUSWAHL):
William V. Davis (ed.): Critical Essays on Robert Bly, Macmillan,
New York 1992
Thomas R. Smith (ed.): Writing Swiftly: Writings in Honor of Robert
Bly, HarperCollins, New York 1993
William V. Davis (ed.): Robert Bly: The Poet and His Critics, Camden
House, 1994
AUF DEUTSCH LIEGEN VOR:
Eisenhans, Kindler, 1991 / Droemer Knaur, 1993 / Rowohlt, 2oo5
Die kindliche Gesellschaft: Über die Weigerung, erwachsen zu werden,
Kindler, 1997 / Droemer Knaur, 2oo2
Die dunklen Seiten des menschlichen Wesens, Droemer Knaur, 2ooo
Die ferne Zarin (mit Marion Woodman), Kindler, 2ooo
