Poet Marvin Bell, photo by Sam Roxas-Chua

Marvin Bell

August 3, 1937—December 14, 2020

Marvin Bell taught 40 years for the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop and served two terms as Iowa’s first Poet Laureate. He has published 24 books and is known for his many collaborations with other artists, including Whiteout, an ekphrastic collaboration with photographer Nathan Lyons, and for his influential teaching. Often redefining his poetics from book to book, he is the creator of the “Dead Man” and “Dead Man Resurrected” poems, and has been called “ambitious without pretension.” Bell edited poetry for five years for the North American Review at its rebirth and two years for The Iowa Review at its birth. He began and edited New Poets / Short Books for Lost Horse Press for five years, a series that published 15 poets, three to a volume. He also designed and taught a summer workshop for teachers from the urban program America SCORES for five years. He is a recipient of The Lamont Award for his first book, Guggenheim and NEA Fellowships, Senior Fulbrights to Yugoslavia and Australia, and awards from The Academy of American Poets and The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Incarnate: The Collected Dead Man Poems will appear in October 2019. A short interview can be seen online in the “On the Fly” series.  

Photo by Sam Roxas-Chua

 

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