Allen Grossman

Poet and Literary Critic Class of 1989
location icon Location
Waltham, Massachusetts
age iconAge
57 at time of award
age iconDate Deceased
June 27, 2014

About Allen's Work

Allen Grossman is a poet, a literary critic, and a teacher.

Grossman is distinguished by his quietly luminous lyric poems.  He is the author of 10 books of poetry, including A Harlot’s Hire (1959), The Recluse (1965), And the Dew Lay All Night Upon My Branch (1974), Of the Great House (1982), The Ether Dome and Other Poems: New and Selected (1979-1991) (1991), How to Do Things with Tears (2001) and Sweet Youth (2002).  He is the author of The Sighted Singer: Two Works on Poetry for Readers and Writers (1991) and The Long Schoolroom: Lessons in the Bitter Logic of the Poetic Principle (1997).  He has also written essays on Hart Crane, Walt Whitman, and Abraham Lincoln.

Biography

Grossman taught at Brandeis University (1957-1991), where he was the Paul E. Prosswimmer Professor of Poetry and General Education.  He was a visiting Professor at the Universitat HaNegev (1971) and the Pearl Andelson Sherry Visiting Poet at the University of Chicago (2004).  Since 1991, he has been the Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at the Johns Hopkins University.

Grossman received a B.A. (1949) and an M.A. (1956) from Harvard University, and a Ph.D. (1960) from Brandeis University. 

Last updated January 1, 2005.

Published on August 1, 1989

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