Thomas McGrath (writer)

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Thomas McGrath

Thomas McGrath (born November 20, 1916 in Sheldon , North Dakota ; died September 20, 1990 in Minneapolis , Minnesota ) was an American poet.

Life

McGrath was the eldest son of James McGrath and Catherine, nee Shea. He grew up with four brothers and a sister on a farm near Sheldon, North Dakota. After attending high school in Sheldon, he studied at Moorhead State University and the University of North Dakota at Grand Forks , where he graduated in 1939 with a bachelor's degree. Because of the outbreak of war, he could not use a Rhodes scholarship that had been awarded to him and initially continued his studies at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge , where he made the acquaintance of his later publisher Alan Swallow. In 1940/1941 he was a lecturer at Colby College in Maine , but found no taste for teaching and then went to New York, where he was politically active, wrote and worked in a shipyard until he was drafted in 1942. He spent most of his service at the air force base on the Aleutian island of Amchitka . In 1945 he was dismissed with the rank of sergeant and was finally able to study at New College in Oxford in 1947/1948 with his Rhodes scholarship .

After returning to the United States, he taught at Los Angeles State College from 1951 to 1954 . His dismissal there was directly related to his appearance as an uncooperative witness before the Committee on Un-American Activities . He processed this experience in his only science fiction novel The Gates of Ivory, the Gates of Horn (1957, German Die Tore der Träume ), a dystopian vision of a machine-controlled America.

In the years that followed, McGrath worked as a school teacher in private schools and in various jobs to earn a living. From 1960 he was able to work again academically, first at the CW Post College in New York State, then from 1962 at the North Dakota State University in Fargo . In 1969 he moved to his first alma mater, Moorhead State University in Minnesota , where he stayed until he left in 1983.

McGrath was married three times and had one son. Together with his wife Genia, he was the founder and editor of Crazy Horse magazine . In 1990 McGrath died at the age of 73.

Appreciations

  • 1965: Amy Lowell Traveling Fellowship in Poetry
  • 1967: Guggenheim Fellow
  • 1974, 1982: National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships
  • 1976, 1981: Bush Fellow
  • 1981: Honorary Doctorate from the University of North Dakota
  • 1977: Distinguished Achievement Award from the Society for Western Literature

bibliography

  • First Manifesto. A. Swallow, Baton Rouge, LA 1940.
  • The Dialectics of Love. In: Alan Swallow (Eds.): Three Young Poets: Thomas McGrath, William Peterson, James Franklin Lewis. James A. Decker, Prairie City, IL 1942.
  • To Walk a Crooked Mile. Swallow Press, New York City 1947.
  • Longshot O'Leary's Garland of Practical Poetry. International Publishers, New York City 1949.
  • Witness to the Times! Private print, 1954.
  • Figures from a Double World. Alan Swallow, Denver, CO 1955.
  • The Gates of Ivory, the Gates of Horn. Mainstream Publishers, 1957. Reprinted from Another Chicago Press, 1987 ISBN 0-9614644-2-9 .
    • German: The gates of dreams. Translated with a comment by Heinz Förster. With a foreword by Charles Humboldt. Structure, Berlin 1973.
  • Clouds. Melmont Publishers, 1959.
  • The Beautiful Things. Vanguard Press, 1960.
  • Letter to an Imaginary Friend. Part I: Alan Swallow, 1962. Part I and II: Swallow Press, Chicago, IL 1970. Part III and IV: Copper Canyon Press, 1985. Complete edition I – IV: Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA 1997, ISBN 1- 55659-077-6 .
  • New and Selected Poems. Alan Swallow, 1964.
  • The Movie at the End of the World: Collected Poems. Swallow Press, 1972.
  • Poems for Little People. [Gloucester], ca.1973.
  • Voyages to the Inland Sea # 3. Center for Contemporary Poetry, 1973.
  • Voices from beyond the wall. Territorial Press, Moorhead, MN 1974.
  • A Sound of One Hand: Poems. Minnesota Writers Publishing House, St. Peter, MN 1975.
  • Open Songs: Sixty Short Poems. Uzzano, Mount Carroll, IL 1977, ISBN 0-930600-00-2 .
  • Letters to Tomasito. With graphics by Randall W. Scholes. Holy Cow! Press, St. Paul, MN 1977, ISBN 0-930100-01-8 .
  • Trinc: Praises II: A Poem. Copper Canyon Press, 1979.
  • Waiting for the Angel. Uzzano, Menomonie, WI 1979, ISBN 0-930600-07-X .
  • Passages toward the Dark. Copper Canyon Press, 1982, ISBN 0-914742-63-9 .
  • Echoes inside the labyrinth. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1983, ISBN 0-938410-13-X .
  • Longshot O'Leary Counsels Direct Action: Poems. West End Press, 1983, ISBN 0-931122-28-7 .
  • Selected Poems, 1938-1988. Copper Canyon Press, 1988, ISBN 1-55659-012-1 .
  • This coffin has no handles: A Novel. Thunder's Mouth Press, 1988, ISBN 0-938410-63-6 .
  • Death song. Edited by Sam Hamill. Copper Canyon Press, 1991, ISBN 1-55659-035-0 .

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME McGrath, Thomas
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American poet
DATE OF BIRTH November 20, 1916
PLACE OF BIRTH Sheldon , North Dakota
DATE OF DEATH 20th September 1990
Place of death Minneapolis , Minnesota