Last Poems

Hayden Carruth: Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) lived for many years in northern Vermont, then moved to upstate New York, where he taught in the Graduate Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. He published dozens of books of poetry, a novel, four books of criticism, and two anthologies. Carruth won the 1996 National Book Award for Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, and his Collected Shorter Poems: 1946-1991 received the National Book Critics Circle Award. He served as the editor of Poetry, poetry editor of Harper's, and for twenty-five years an advisory editor of The Hudson Review. The Bollingen, Guggenheim, and Lannan Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Arts, awarded fellowships to Carruth, and he earned the Lenore Marshall/The Nation Prize, the Paterson Poetry Prize, the Vermont Governor's Medal, the Carl Sandburg Award, the Whiting Award, and the Ruth Lily Prize. Stephen Dobyns: Stephen Dobyns was born in Orange, New Jersey, in 1941. He graduated from Wayne State University and has an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Dobyns has published ten books of poetry and twenty-one novels, including the popular "Saratoga” crime novels. Dobyns has worked as a reporter for the Detroit News and has taught at the University of Iowa, Sarah Lawrence College, Warren Wilson College, Syracuse University, and Boston University. Among his many honors and awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Stephen Dobyns lives in Rhode Island with his wife and three children.