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James Dickey All American Poet Essay

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James Dickey All American Poet James Dickey was an American Poet whose life has been very diverse, and in his poetry that diversity is shown. He has a lifestyle that most poets do not get to experience. He has lived in many states and countries. That gives me the reason to think that his poetry resembles this life’s diversity.

James Lafayette Dickey, III was born in the town of Atlanta, Georgia on February 2, 1923. His parents were Maibelle and Eugene Dickey. He went to Ed S. Cook Elementary School and North Fulton High School as a kid, both of which are in Atlanta. He was athletic as a child. He played football and track, but his football career led him to a scholarship at the University of Clemson, in Clemson, South …show more content…

Not liking this job, he left it after only five years. He soon received another fellowship (Guggenheim Fellowship) which took him and his family to Europe. After returning from this fellowship he became Poet-in-Residence at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He stayed there for only a year, when he then becomes Poet-in-Residence at San Fernando Valley State College, in Northbridge, California. He returned to teaching in 1965 at University of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. He only taught there for a year because he becomes Poet-in-Residence at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He received a high honor that only a few poets get when he becomes Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress or Poet Laurate until 1968. He was then named Poet-in-Residence and First Carolina Professor of English, at the University of South Carolina, Columbia. He was then given the honor of the induction into the 50-member American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters on May 18th, 1988. He was assigned Chair #15, previously occupied by novelist John Steinbeck. In 1994 he was hospitalized with jaundice (yellowish pigmentation of the skin, tissues, and body fluids caused by the deposition of bile pigments). In 1996 he was afflicted with fibrosis of the lungs. In 1997 he taught his last class at USC January 14. He then died January 19, 1997. In his lifetime he had received 9 awards, and has received many honors ranging from graduating Magna Cum Laude at Vanderbilt

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