Stanley Plumly

Plumly was born in Barnesville, Ohio. He grew up in Ohio and Virginia. His father was a lumberjack and welder; his mother was a homemaker.^[2] His working-class upbringing on farmland would feature heavily in his poetry and books.^[3] His upbringing was influenced by Quakerism.^[2]

He obtained a BA at Wilmington College in Ohio and studied for, but did not complete, a PhD at Ohio University. He taught for a number of years at Ohio University, where he helped found The Ohio Review. He taught the writing program at the University of Maryland from 2009.^[4] He was called "the most English American poet"^[3] and held Keats in very high regard.^[2]

Plumly died on April 11, 2019, in Frederick, Maryland, at the age of 79. The cause of death was multiple myeloma.^[5]

Poetry

Collections

• Plumly, Stanley (1970). In the outer dark : poems. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP.
• How the Plains Indians Got Horses (Best Cellar Press, 1973)
• Giraffe (Louisiana Press, 1974)
• Out-of-the-Body Travel (Ecco/Viking, 1977)
• Summer Celestial (Ecco/Norton, 1983)
• Plumly, Stanley (1989). Boy on the Step. New York: Ecco/Norton. ISBN 0-88001-228-5.
• Plumly, Stanley (1997). The Marriage in the Trees. Hopewell, NJ: Ecco Press. ISBN 0-88001-487-3.

• Plumly, Stanley (2000). Now that my father lies down beside me : new & selected poems, 1970 to 2000. New York: Ecco Press. ISBN 0-06-019659-9.
• Old Heart (W. W. Norton, 2007)
• Orphan Hours (W. W. Norton, 2012)
• Against Sunset (W. W. Norton, 2016)
• Middle Distance (W.W. Norton, 2020)^[6]

List of poems

• "The Crows at 3 A.M." The New Yorker. June 2, 2008.
• "Silent Heart Attack". The Atlantic Monthly. 292 (2): 116. September 2003.
• "Complaint Against the Arsonist". Virginia Quarterly Review. Summer 1992. Archived from the original on 2009-05-01.
• "Sickle". Ploughshares. Winter 1999. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016.
• "Samuel Scott's A Sunset, With a View of Nine Elms". Ploughshares. 1997–1999. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016.
• "Snipers". Ploughshares. Winter 1993–1994. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016.
• "Dwarf With Violin, Government Center Station". Ploughshares. Winter 1990–1991. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016.
• "Dark All Afternoon". Ploughshares. Summer 1980. Archived from the original on January 17, 2016.

As editor

• Sebastian Matthews; Stanley Plumly, eds. (2005). Search Party: Collected Poems. Mariner Books. ISBN 0-618-56585-X.^{[better source needed]}
• Michael Collier; Stanley Plumly, eds. (1999). The new Bread Loaf anthology of contemporary American poetry. UPNE. ISBN 978-0-87451-950-1.

Nonfiction

• Argument & song. Other Press, LLC. 2003. ISBN 978-1-59051-076-6.
• Posthumous Keats: A Personal Biography (W. W. Norton, 2008)
• The Immortal Evening: A Legendary Dinner With Keats, Wordsworth, and Lamb (W. W. Norton, 2014)
• Elegy Landscapes: Constable and Turner and the Intimate Sublime (W. W. Norton, 2018)

• Poet Laureate for the State of Maryland^[7]
• Truman Capote Award for Literary Criticism, 2015^[8]
• John William Corrington Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature, 2010
• Beall Award in Biography from PEN, 2009
• Paterson Poetry Prize, 2008
• LA Times Book Prize, 2008
• Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, 1972
• Ingram Merrill Foundation Award
• Pushcart Prize on six occasions
• Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
• John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence

Fellowships

• Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship
• Ingram-Merrill Fellowship
• 1973 John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship^[9]
• National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship on three occasions
• 1991 poet in residence at The Frost Place

• Faculty biography maintained by the University of Maryland
• Stanley Plumly's Profile and a few poems at Academy of American Poets, Poetry.org website
• "A Conversation with Stanley Plumly", Lisa Meyer, Boston Review
• "Stanley Plumly: An interview", The American Poetry Review, May 1995, David Biespiel, Rose Solari
• "Bright Stars: Campion’s Film of and from Keats", Poems Out Loud, Stanley Plumly, 10.22.09 Archived 2014-10-29 at the Wayback Machine
• Sherry Horowitz "Review of Stanley Plumly's book Old Heart: 'The Crystal Eye: The 'I' as a Prism' 2007