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W.D. Snodgrass, January 13th, 2009
W.D. Snodgrass, 83
Pulitzer Prize recipient
On Jan. 13, 2009, W. D. Snodgrass, 83, died at his Madison County home. He is survived by his wife of 25 years, Kathleen Snodgrass; daughter, Cynthia Snodgrass and son, Russell Snodgrass.
Born in Beaver Falls, Pa. in 1926, Snodgrass served in the Navy during World War II and later earned his M.A. and M.F.A. at the State University of Iowa.
His first book, Heart’s Needle (1959) won the Pulitzer Prize and initiated the confessional school of poetry. Snodgrass published numerous volumes of poetry and prose and received such honors as Great Britain’s Guinness Prize, the American Academy of Poets’ translation award for his Selected Translations (1998), and fellowships and grants from the Ingram Merrill, Guggenheim, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations. Three of his books–The Fuehrer Bunker: Poems in Progress (1975), De/Compositions: 101 Good Poems Gone Wrong (2001), and Not For Specialists: New and Selected Poems (2006–were finalists for National Book Critics Circle awards. He received honorary doctorates from Allegheny College and the University of Delaware.
It is impossible to sum up any life, but here is Snodgrass talking about trees and more in the last stanza of “Old Apple Trees:
Like elders of Colonus, the old men of Thebes
Tossing their white hair, almost whispering,
Soon, each one of us will be taken
By dark powers under this ground
That drove us here, that warped us.
Not one of us got it his own way.
Nothing like any of us
Will be seen again, forever.
Each of us held some noble shape in mind.
It seemed better that we kept alive.
Funeral services: None in honoring his wishes.
In lieu of flowers, his family requests donations be made in his name to Hospice and Palliative Care, 4277 Middle Settlement Road, New Hartford, NY 13413.
Arrangements: Burgess & Tedesco Funeral Homes Inc., 31 Cedar St., Morrisville.
Words of remembrance
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