William Packard (author)
| William Packard | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 2, 1933 New York City, U.S. |
| Died | November 3, 2002 (aged 69) Manhattan, New York City |
| Occupation | Poet, playwright, editor, novelist |
| Nationality | American |
William Packard (September 2, 1933 – November 3, 2002) was an American poet, playwright, teacher, novelist, and was also founder and editor of the New York Quarterly, a national poetry magazine.
Packard was born September 2, 1933, and was raised in New York. He was a graduate of Stanford University, where he earned a degree in philosophy and studied under the poet and critic Yvor Winters. Packard was a presence in the literary circles of the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1950s and 60s — circles that included Allen Ginsberg, Kenneth Patchen, and Kenneth Rexroth. Packard was most active, however, in New York City, where he lived and wrote for more than half his life.
While in New York, Packard hosted the 92nd Street Y’s poetry reading series, was Vice President of the Poetry Society of America, was a member of the governing board of the Pirandello Society, and was co-director of the Hofstra Writers Conference for seven years. In 1957 he was awarded a Frost Fellowship and, in 1980, was honored with a reception at the White House for distinguished American poets.
Packard's literary career spanned nearly 50 years and resulted in the publication of six volumes of poetry, including To Peel an Apple,First Selected Poems, Voices/I hear/voices, and Collected Poems. His novel, Saturday Night at San Marcos, is a bawdy, irreverent send-up of the literary scene. It is written with “a sharp yet loving bite … Picture the pace of Jack Kerouac's 'On the Road' plus caricature worthy of Portnoy,” according to the New York Times. His translation of Racine’s Phedre, for which he was awarded the Outer Critic’s Circle Award, is the only English rendering to date to have maintained the original’s rhymed Alexandrine couplets. It was produced Off-Broadway with Beatrice Straight and Mildred Dunnock, and directed by Paul-Emile Deiber; a production which Stanley Kauffmann of the New York Times referred to as “the best performance in English of a classic French tragedy that I have seen.”. His plays include The Killer Thing, directed by Otto Preminger,Sandra and the Janitor, produced at the HB Playwrights Foundation, The Funeral, The Marriage, and War Play, produced and directed by Gene Frankel. Three collections of Mr. Packard’s one-act plays, Psychopathology of Everyday Life, Threesome, and Behind the Eyes, were recently produced in New York. Packard was the great-grandson of Evangelist Dwight L. Moody and wrote the non-fiction book Evangelism in America: From Tents to TV.
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