Rachel Hadas

Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Classics: Essays (Textos Books, 2007),^[1] and her most recent poetry collection is The Ache of Appetite (Copper Beech Press, 2010).^[2] Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants,^[3] the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.^[4]

Biography

The daughter of noted Columbia University classicist Moses Hadas and Latin teacher Elizabeth Chamberlayne Hadas, Hadas grew up in Morningside Heights, New York City. She received a baccalaureate at Radcliffe College in classics, a Master of Arts (1977) at Johns Hopkins University in poetry, and a doctorate at Princeton University in comparative literature (1982). Marrying a man from the island of Samos and living in Greece after her undergraduate work at Radcliffe, Hadas became an intimate of poets James Merrill and Alan Ansen, both of whom strongly influenced her early work, as did Cavafy, whose work she translated, and Seferis.^[5]

She is often associated with the New Formalism school of poetry, and her work was included in landmark collections of New Formalism including Rebel Angels and A Formal Feeling Comes. Her subject matter ranges from her roots in the classics through the intimately personal, with memory a recurring theme throughout her work.^[6]

During the height of the AIDS crisis, she led poetry workshops for those afflicted, and edited a number of their works with Charles Barber, experiences that informed her subsequent work. Her translations of writers including Tibullus, Baudelaire, and the Greek poet Konstantine Karyotakis, have been published to much acclaim.^[7] She has taught English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University since 1981, where, as of 2006, she is the Board of Governors Professor of English. She was married to composer George Edwards until his death in 2011, and lives with their son in Manhattan.^[8]

Selected bibliography

Full-Length Poetry Collections

• The Ache of Appetite, Copper Beech Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-914278-84-9
• River of Forgetfulness, David Robert Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-933456-24-9; (WordTech Communications, 2006)
• Laws, University of Nebraska Press, 2004), ISBN 978-1-932023-13-8
• Indelible. Wesleyan University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8195-6440-5.
• Halfway Down the Hall. (Wesleyan University Press. 1998. ISBN 978-0-8195-2251-1.
• The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths (Faber & Faber, 1995)
• The Empty Bed. Wesleyan University Press. 1995. ISBN 978-0-8195-1225-3.
• Mirrors of Astonishment (Rutgers University Press, 1992)
• Living in Time (Rutgers University Press, 1990)
• Pass It On, Princeton University Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-691-01454-8
• A Son from Sleep. Wesleyan University Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0-8195-1140-9.
• Slow Transparency (Wesleyan University Press, 1983)

Chapbooks

• Starting from Troy (David R. Godine, 1975)
• "Two Poems" ([Dim Gray Bar Press], 2000)

Essay Collections

• Classics: Essays (Textos Books, 2007)
• Merrill, Cavafy, Poems, and Dreams (University of Michigan Press, 2000)
• Form, Cycle, Infinity: Landscape Imagery in the Poetry of Robert Frost & George Seferis. Bucknell University Press. 1985. ISBN 978-0-8387-5073-5.

Memoir

• Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry. Paul Dry Books. 2011. ISBN 978-1-58988-061-0.

Selected Translations

• Other Worlds Than This (Rutger University Press, 1994)

Anthologies Edited

• The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (W.W. Norton, 2010; Eds., Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keeley, Karen Van Dyck)
• Unending Dialogue: Voices from an AIDS Poetry Workshop (Ed. with Charles Barber, Faber & Faber, 1991)

Anthology Publications

• Billy Collins (ed.). "Bird, Weasel, Fountain". Best American Poetry 2006. ISBN 978-0-7432-2967-8.

References

1. Library of Congress Online Catalog > Rachel Hadas > Classics: Essays
2. Library of Congress Online Catalog > Rachel Hadas > River of Forgetfulness
3. Academy of American Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography
4. The Poetry Foundation > Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography
5. The Poetry Foundation > Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography
6. Raconteur Events > September 2008 > Event Schedule > Reader Bios
7. The Poetry Foundation > Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography
8. Academy of American Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography

Sources

• Library of Congress Online Catalog > Rachel Hadas

External links

• RachelHadas.com Author Website
• Audio Reading: Rachel Hadas reads from Euripedes' poem Helen
• Audio Reading: Rachel Hadas reads a poem by Sappho
• Interview: Contemporary Poetry Review > 2009 > The CPR Interview: Rachel Hadas