Robert Dana
| Robert Dana | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
June 2, 1929 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Died | February 6, 2010 (aged 80) Iowa City, Iowa |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Poetry |
| Institutions |
Cornell College University of Florida Wayne State University University of Idaho Wichita State University Beijing University |
| Alma mater |
University of Iowa Drake University Holyoke Junior College |
| Notable awards |
poet laureate for the State of Iowa Two National Endowment of the Arts Fellowships 1989 Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award from New York University 1994 Carl Sandburg Medal for Poetry 1996 Pushcart Prize Rainer Maria Rilke Prize for Poetry |
Robert Dana (June 2, 1929 – February 6, 2010) was an award-winning American poet, who taught writing and English literature at Cornell College and many other schools, revived The North American Review and served as its editor during the years 1964–1968, and was the poet laureate for the State of Iowa from 2004 to 2008.
Robert Patrick Dana was born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1929. At the age of seven he became an orphan, and was uprooted and moved to the western part of the state where he was raised as a foster child in the home of James Francis ("Pop") Kearney in Haydenville, Massachusetts. He served in the South Pacific near the end of World War II as a US Navy radio operator, and during lulls in the action found that he loved writing poetry. After being honorably discharged in 1948, he spent a year at Holyoke Junior College on the GI Bill, then sold his raincoat and watch to purchase a one-way bus ticket to Des Moines, Iowa. There he attended Drake University, studying with the poet E. L. Mayo, while supporting himself by working as a sports writer for the Des Moines Register.
Upon graduation, he moved to far northwestern Iowa where he taught school for a year in George, Iowa. He then moved to the other side of the state, studying with Robert Lowell and John Berryman at the University of Iowa and the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he joined a group of noted writers including Donald Justice, Henri Coulette, Jane Cooper, and Philip Levine. He received his master's degree in 1954, and at the age of 25 was promptly hired by Cornell College, Mount Vernon, Iowa; he remains the youngest person ever hired for a tenure-track faculty position there. He taught writing and English literature at Cornell from 1954 to 1994, eventually serving as both Professor of English and Poet-in-Residence.
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