Paul Blackburn

Paul Blackburn (November 24, 1926 – September 13, 1971) was born in St. Albans, Vermont, United States of America. Blackburn spent his childhood in Vermont and New Hampshire. His parents divorced in 1930 (his father left for California and his mother for Greenwich Village to pursue a literary career), leaving Blackburn to be reared by his strict maternal grandparents.

When 14, Blackburn joined his mother in Greenwich. He later attended New York University and the University of Wisconsin where he received his Bachelor of Arts in 1950. Having received a Fulbright Grant in 1954, Blackburn spent two years at the University of Toulouse, and then lived in Spain. He returned to New York in 1957. An excellent translator and editor, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1967, which took him back to Europe.

In his lifetime Blackburn published thirteen books of original poetry, as well as five major works of translation. Twelve other books were published posthumously.

He died on September 13, 1971 of esophageal cancer in Cortland, New York.

Bibliography

The Dissolving Fabric (1955), Brooklyn Manhattan Transit: A Bouquet for Flatbush (1960), The Nets (1961), 16 Sloppy Haiku and a Lyric for Robert Reardon (1966), Sing Song (1966), The Reardon Poems (1967), The Cities (1967), In. On. Or About The Premises (1968), Two New Poems (1969), The Assassination of President McKinley (1970), Three Dreams and an Old Poem (1970), Gin: Four Journal Pieces (1970), The Journals: Blue Mounds Entries (1971),

Translations

Proensa (1953), Poem of the Cid (1966), End of the Game and Other Stories by Julio Cortazar (1967), Hunk of Skin by Pablo Picasso (1968), Cronopios and Famas by Julio Cortazar (1969)

Works published posthumously

Early Selected Y Mas: Poems 1949–1966 (1972), Peire Vidal (1972), Halfway Down the Coast (1975), The Journals (1977), By Ear (1978), Proensa: An Anthology of Troubadour Poetry (1978), Lorca/Blackburn: Poems of Federico Garcia Lorca Chosen by Paul Blackburn (1979) Against the Silences (1980), The Selection of Heaven (1980), The Collected Poems of Paul Blackburn (1985), The Parallel Voyages (1987), The Selected Poems (1989)