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Thomas McGrath

トーマス・マクグラス

Thomas McGrath

Profile

Gender
Male
Born
1916-11-20 （near Sheldon, North Dakota, U.S.）
Died
1990-09-20 （Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S.） age 73
Nationality
United States
Languages
English
Residence History
Ransom County, North Dakota (grew up on a farm) → Grand Forks, North Dakota (University of North Dakota) → Los Angeles, California → Moorhead, Minnesota → Minneapolis, Minnesota (later life)

Career

Occupations
Poet, Screenwriter, Teacher
Active Years
1940-1990

Education

University of North Dakota
Degree: BA
Country: United States
Earned a B.A. at the University of North Dakota, Grand Forks
Louisiana State University
Country: United States
Pursued postgraduate studies; degree details not specified
Oxford University (Rhodes Scholar)
Country: United Kingdom
Attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar

Awards

Rhodes Scholarship
Organization: Rhodes Trust
Result: 受賞

Awards & Nominations

Works

Major Works

Letter to an Imaginary Friend

1962 Poetry

A long poem published in parts between 1957 and 1985 (first part 1962). Combines social and political concerns with autobiographical material; later compiled into a single volume.

social issuespoliticsautobiographyworking-class life
Adaptations
  • [Documentary film] The Movie at the End of the World

First Manifesto

1940 Poetry collection

An early collection reflecting youthful political consciousness and rural upbringing.

rural lifepolitical consciousness

To Walk a Crooked Mile

1947 Poetry collection

A collection addressing interwar and postwar contexts and personal experience.

war and societypersonal experience

Selected Poems, 1938-1988

1988 Selected poems

A selection of poems spanning his career, compiling major and representative works.

lifepoliticsland/home

This coffin has no handles: a novel

1988 Novel

A novel that channels his poetic sensibility into a prose form, showing stylistic experiments different from his poetry.

identitydeath

Bibliography

  • First Manifesto (1940)
  • Three Young Poets (contributor/editor, 1942)
  • To Walk a Crooked Mile (1947)
  • Longshot O'Leary's Garland of Practical Poesie (1949)
  • Figures from a Double World (1955)
  • The gates of ivory, the gates of horn (1957)
  • Clouds (1959)
  • The Beautiful Things (1960)
  • Letter to an Imaginary Friend (published in parts 1962–1985, complete 1997)
  • New and Selected Poems (1964)
  • The Movie at the End of the World: Collected Poems (1972)
  • Voices from beyond the Wall (1974)
  • A Sound of One Hand: Poems (1975)
  • Letters to Tomasito (1977)
  • Trinc: Praises II; A Poem (1979)
  • Passages toward the Dark (1982)
  • Echoes inside the Labyrinth (1983)
  • Longshot O'Leary Counsels Direct Action: Poems (1983)
  • Selected Poems, 1938-1988 (1988)
  • This coffin has no handles: a novel (1988)
  • Death Song (posthumous, edited 1991)

Adaptations

  • Documentary film about the poet: 'The Movie at the End of the World'

Style & Themes

Literary Style
Socially and politically engaged, colloquial yet lyrical voiceLong-form poems that blend autobiographical elements with narrative
Recurring Motifs
rural life and landlabor and classwar experiencefatherhood / letters to his son (Tomasito)

Legacy

Thomas McGrath is recognized as a significant 20th-century American socially engaged poet; his long poem 'Letter to an Imaginary Friend' is considered his major work. His rural perspective and political engagement influenced later poets.

Archives

  • Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University (related Beat poets and poetry collection)

In Popular Culture

  • Works have been included in anthologies and literature textbooks
  • A documentary film about the poet has been produced

Quotes

  • Best of all, Letter to an Imaginary Friend licks its fingers and burps at the table. Polite it is not--and the better for it when McGrath turns from his populist vitriol to what may be his most abiding talent: that of bestowing praise--grace, even--on the common, the unruly, the inconsolable...
    Source: Rain Taxi review (Winter 1997/1998) (1997)

Trivia

  • Grew up on a farm in Ransom County, North Dakota.
  • Served in the Aleutian Islands with the U.S. Army Air Forces during WWII.
  • Was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford.
  • Dismissed from Los Angeles State College following appearance as an unfriendly witness before HUAC in 1953.
  • Dedicated much later work to his son, Tomasito.