Bly was an opponent of the war in Vietnam and author of Iron John, the manifesto of the ‘expressive men’s movement’
The poet Robert Bly, who counted the National Book Award and the Poetry Society of America’s Frost Medal among his many honours, has died. He was 94.
The Star Tribune newspaper, in his native Minnesota, said Bly died on Sunday. His daughter, Mary Bly, told the Associated Press that he died after suffering from dementia for 14 years.
“Dad had no pain,” she said. “His whole family was around him, so how much better can you do?”
Bly emerged from two years in the US navy in the 1940s to become a prodigious poet, translator and writer of prose. In an essay for the New York Times in 1984, he recalled his beginnings.
“One day while studying a Yeats poem I decided to write poetry the rest of my life,” he wrote. “I recognised that a single short poem has room for history, music, psychology, religious thought, mood, occult speculation, character and events of one’s own life.”
Summing up his career, the Star Tribune said Bly “started out writing bucolic poems about rural Minnesota and went on to shake up the complacent world of 1950s poetry, rail against war, bring international poets to western readers, and become a best-selling author teaching men how to be in touch with their feelings”.
Thomas R Smith, a longtime friend who worked as Bly’s assistant and has co-edited several books about him, told the AP Bly “defied the convention that all the important poetry was...
Read Full Story: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/nov/22/robert-bly-award-winning-american-poet-died-age-94
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