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August Kleinzahler

オーガスト・クラインザラー

August Kleinzahler

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1949-12-10 （Jersey City, New Jersey, U.S.）
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
New Jersey (childhood/home base) → Fort Lee, New Jersey → Bronx (attended Horace Mann School) → Wisconsin (attended University of Wisconsin–Madison; left) → Victoria, British Columbia (University of Victoria) → Montreal → Alaska (worked, museum) → San Francisco (Haight-Ashbury)

Career

Occupations
Poet, Writer, Music columnist
Active Years
1967-
Influenced By
Basil Bunting, Thom Gunn, William Carlos Williams, Frank O'Hara, Kenneth Rexroth, John Keats

Education

University of Wisconsin–Madison
Period: 1967–1968（入学後中退）
Country: United States
Attended briefly, left before graduating
University of Victoria
Period: 1971–（在学）
Country: Canada
Attended classes influenced by Basil Bunting; formative period

Awards

Guggenheim Fellowship
1989
Organization: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Result: fellowship
Berlin Prize
2000
Organization: American Academy in Berlin
Result: recipient
Griffin Poetry Prize
2004
Work: The Strange Hours Travelers Keep
Organization: Griffin Trust for Excellence in Poetry
Result: winner
Lannan Literary Award for Poetry
2008
Work: Sleeping It Off in Rapid City
Category: Poetry
Organization: Lannan Foundation
Result: winner
National Book Critics Circle Award (Poetry)
2008
Work: Sleeping It Off in Rapid City
Category: Poetry
Organization: National Book Critics Circle
Result: winner

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

The Strange Hours Travelers Keep

2004 Poetry

A collection of poems exploring cities, travel, memory and loss. Known for concrete, musical lines that render everyday scenes and landscapes.

citiestravelmemorylossmusic

Sleeping It Off in Rapid City

2008 Poetry

A collection mixing personal recollection, landscape, humor and melancholy. Critically acclaimed and recipient of multiple awards.

personal recollectionlandscapehumorloss

Cutty, One Rock (Low Characters and Strange Places, Gently Explained)

2005 Non-fiction

A non-fiction work of essays about low characters and strange places that fascinate the author.

non-fictioncharacter sketchesplaces

Bibliography

  • The sausage master of Minsk (1977)
  • A Calendar of Airs (1978)
  • Storm over Hackensack (1985)
  • Earthquake Weather (1989)
  • Like cities, like storms (1992)
  • Red Sauce, Whiskey and Snow (1995)
  • Green Sees Things in Waves (1999)
  • Live from the Hong Kong Nile Club: Poems: 1975-1990 (2000)
  • The Strange Hours Travelers Keep (2004)
  • Cutty, One Rock (2005)
  • Sleeping It Off in Rapid City (2008)
  • The Hotel Oneira (2013)
  • Before Dawn on Bluff Road / Hollyhocks in the Fog (2017)
  • Snow Approaching on the Hudson (2020)
  • Music: I-LXXIV (2009)
  • Sallies, Romps, Portraits, and Send-Offs: Selected Prose, 2000-2016 (2017)
  • The Letters of Thom Gunn (editorial collaboration, 2021)

Style & Themes

Literary Style
concrete, chiseled imagerycolloquial yet musical linesconcise and sharp observation
Recurring Motifs
cities and landscapetravelmusic (especially blues)loss and personal recollectionalcohol and outsider characters

Legacy

An important figure in contemporary American poetry. Praised for his concrete, musical lines and depictions of cities and travel; recipient of multiple major awards. Highly regarded by critics and influential within the American poetry scene.

Archives

  • Yale University, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library: August Kleinzahler Papers

Quotes

  • August Kleinzahler's verse line is always precise, concrete, intelligent and rare - that quality of 'chiseled' verse memorable in Bunting's and Pound's work. A loner, a genius.
    Source: Allen Ginsberg (comment) (2005)

Trivia

  • Named first poet laureate of Fort Lee in 2005.
  • Wrote a long-running music column for the San Diego Reader.
  • Brother committed suicide in 1971; the event deeply influenced his writing.