American writer
James Dickey
|
---|
|
Born
| James Lafayette Dickey
(
1923-02-02
)
February 2, 1923
Atlanta, Georgia
, U.S.
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Died
| January 19, 1997
(1997-01-19)
(aged 73)
[1]
[2]
Columbia, South Carolina
, U.S.
[1]
[2]
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Occupation
|
- Poet
- novelist
- critic
- lecturer
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Nationality
| American
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Period
| Contemporary literature
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Notable works
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Notable awards
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Spouses
| -
Maxine Syerson
(
m.
; died
)
[1]
[2]
-
Deborah Dodson
(
m.
)
[1]
[2]
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Children
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Relatives
| Thomas Swift Dickey, Sr. (brother)
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Allegiance
|
United States
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Service/
branch
| |
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Years of service
| - 1943
(
1943
)
?1946
(
1946
)
(Army)
- 1952
(
1952
)
?1954
(
1954
)
(Air Force)
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Unit
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Battles/wars
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Awards
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James Lafayette Dickey
(February 2, 1923 ? January 19, 1997) was an American poet and novelist.
[3]
He was appointed the eighteenth
United States Poet Laureate
in 1966.
[5]
He also received the
Order of the South
award.
Dickey is best known for his novel
Deliverance
(1970), which was adapted into the
acclaimed 1972 film of the same name
.
Early years
[
edit
]
Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene Dickey and Maibelle Swift in
Atlanta, Georgia
, where he attended
North Fulton High School
in Atlanta's
Buckhead
neighborhood.
[2]
After graduation from North Fulton High in 1941, Dickey completed a postgraduate year at
Darlington School
in Rome, Georgia. Dickey asked to be dismissed from the Darlington rolls in a 1941 letter to the principal, deeming the school the most "disgusting combination of cant, hypocrisy, cruelty, class privilege and inanity I have ever since encountered at any human institution."
[6]
:
47?51
In 1942, he enrolled at
Clemson Agricultural College of South Carolina
and played on the football team as a tailback. After one semester, he left school to enlist in the military. During
World War II
, Dickey served with the
U.S. Army Air Forces
, where he flew thirty-eight missions in the Pacific
Theater as a
P-61 Black Widow
radar operator with the
418th Night Fighter Squadron
, an experience that influenced his work, and for which he was awarded five
Bronze Stars
.
[4]
:
2
. He later served in the
U.S. Air Force
during the
Korean War
. Between the wars, he attended
Vanderbilt University
, where he was elected to
Phi Beta Kappa
and graduated
magna cum laude
with a degree in English and philosophy (as well as minoring in astronomy) in 1949. He also received an M.A. in English from Vanderbilt in 1950.
Career
[
edit
]
Dickey taught as an instructor of English at
Rice University
(then Rice Institute) in
Houston, Texas
in 1950 and following his second Air Force stint, from 1952 to 1954, Dickey returned to academic teaching. Dickey then quit his teaching job at the
University of Florida
in the spring of 1956 after a group of the American Pen's Women's Society protested his reading of the poem called
The Father's Body
; he quit rather than apologize. This incident some critics believe he manipulated to his advantage, he became a successful copy writer for advertising agencies selling
Coca-Cola
and
Lay's
potato chips while in his free time writing some of his best poetry. He once said he embarked on his advertising career in order to "make some bucks." Dickey also said "I was selling my soul to the devil all day... and trying to buy it back at night." He was ultimately fired for shirking his work responsibilities.
[7]
His first book,
Into the Stone and Other Poems
, was published in 1960.
Drowning with Others
was published in 1962, which led to a
Guggenheim Fellowship
(Norton Anthology, The Literature of the American South).
Buckdancer's Choice
(1965) earned him a
National Book Award for Poetry
.
[8]
Among his better-known poems are "The Performance", "
Cherrylog Road
", "The Firebombing", "May Day Sermon", "Falling", and "For The Last Wolverine".
He published his first volume of collected poems,
Poems 1957-1967
in 1967 after being named a poetry consultant for the
Library of Congress
. This publication represents Dickey's best-known poetry. After serving as a visiting lecturer at several institutions from 1963 to 1968 (including
Reed College
,
California State University, Northridge
, the
University of Wisconsin?Madison
, the
University of Wisconsin?Milwaukee
,
Washington University in St. Louis
and the
Georgia Institute of Technology
), Dickey returned to academia in earnest in 1969 as a professor of English and writer-in-residence at the
University of South Carolina
, a position he held for the remainder of his life. It was there that he was also inducted into
Omicron Delta Kappa
, the National Leadership Honor Society, in 1970.
Dickey wrote the poem
The Moon Ground
for
Life
magazine in celebration of the
Apollo 11
Moon landing. His reading of it was broadcast on
ABC television
on July 20, 1969.
[9]
His popularity exploded after the
film version
of his novel
Deliverance
was released in 1972. Dickey wrote the screenplay and had a cameo in the film as a sheriff.
On January 20, 1977, Dickey was invited to read his poem
The Strength of Fields
[10]
:
378-379
at the
inauguration of Jimmy Carter
.
Personal life
[
edit
]
In November 1948 Dickey married Maxine Syerson, and three years later they had their first son,
Christopher
; a second son, Kevin, was born in 1958.
Christopher Dickey was a novelist and journalist, providing coverage from the Middle East for
Newsweek
. In 1998, Christopher wrote a book about his father and Christopher's own sometimes troubled relationship with him, titled
Summer of Deliverance
. Christopher died in July 2020.
[11]
Kevin Dickey is an
interventional radiologist
and lives in
Winston-Salem, NC
.
Two months after Maxine died in 1976, Dickey married one of his students, Deborah Dodson.
[12]
[13]
Their daughter,
Bronwen
, was born in 1981. Bronwen is an author, journalist, and lecturer. Her first book,
Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon
,
[14]
was published in 2016.
Death
[
edit
]
Dickey died on January 19, 1997, aged 73, six days after his last class at the
University of South Carolina
, where from 1968 he taught as poet in residence.
Dickey spent his last years in and out of hospitals, afflicted with severe
alcoholism
,
[12]
jaundice
and later
pulmonary fibrosis
.
Works
[
edit
]
Publications
[
edit
]
Novels
[
edit
]
Poetry
[
edit
]
- Into the Stone and Other Poems
(in
Poets of Today VII
) (1960)
- Drowning with Others
(1962)
- Two Poems of the Air
(1964)
- Helmets
(1964)
- Buckdancer's Choice: Poems
(1965) ?winner of the
National Book Award
[8]
- Poems 1957-67
(1967)
- The Achievement of James Dickey: A Comprehensive Selection of His Poems
(1968)
- The Eye-Beaters, Blood, Victory, Madness, Buckhead and Mercy
(1970)
- Exchanges
(1971)
- The Zodiac
(1976)
- The Owl King
(1977)
- Veteran Birth: The Gadfly Poems 1947-49
(1978)
- Tucky the Hunter
(1978)
- Head-Deep in Strange Sounds: Free-Flight Improvisations from the unEnglish
(1979)
- The Strength of Fields
(1979)
- Falling, May Day Sermon, and Other Poems
(1981)
- The Early Motion
(1981)
- Puella
(1982)
- Varmland
(1982)
- False Youth: Four Seasons
(1983)
- For a Time and Place
(1983)
- Intervisions
(1983)
- The Central Motion: Poems 1968-79
(1983)
- Bronwen, The Traw, and the Shape-Shifter: A Poem in Four Parts
(1986)
- Summons
(1988)
- The Eagle's Mile
(1990)
- — (15 March 1992).
The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945?1992
. Wesleyan Poetry.
Wesleyan University Press
.
ISBN
978-0-81-952202-3
.
LCCN
91050811
.
OCLC
767498572
.
OL
1566756M
– via
Internet Archive
.
- The Selected Poems
(1998)
- The Complete Poems of James Dickey
(2013)
- Death, and the Day's Light
(2015)
Illustrated prose
[
edit
]
Non-fiction
[
edit
]
Filmography
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
Krebs, Albin (21 January 1997).
"James Dickey, Two-Fisted Poet and the Author of 'Deliverance,' Is Dead at 73"
. Section D.
The New York Times
(National ed.). p. 22.
eISSN
1553-8095
.
ISSN
0362-4331
.
LCCN
sn00061556
.
OCLC
1645522
.
Archived
from the original on 14 January 2022
. Retrieved
31 January
2022
.
Mr. Dickey's first wife, Maxine, died in 1976, and two months later he married Deborah Dodson, who was one of his students. He is survived by his wife; two sons, Kevin and Christopher, from his first marriage, and a daughter, Bronwen Elaine.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
Oliver, Myrna (21 January 1997).
"James Dickey; Prolific Poet, Author of 'Deliverance'
"
.
Los Angeles Times
.
eISSN
2165-1736
.
ISSN
0458-3035
.
LCCN
2011267049
.
OCLC
3638237
.
Archived
from the original on 8 March 2021
. Retrieved
31 January
2022
.
During World War II, Dickey flew more than 100 combat missions in the Pacific. He later reenlisted to fly in the Korean War.
- ^
a
b
Garner, Dwight
(24 August 2010).
"
'Deliverance': A Dark Heart Still Beating"
. Section C.
The New York Times
(New York ed.). p. 1.
eISSN
1553-8095
.
ISSN
0362-4331
.
LCCN
sn00061556
.
OCLC
1645522
.
Archived
from the original on 14 January 2022
. Retrieved
31 January
2022
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
— (30 May 2005). Van Ness, Gordon (ed.).
The One Voice of James Dickey: His Letters and Life, 1970-1997
. Vol. 1.
University of Missouri Press
.
ISBN
978-0-82-621572-7
.
LCCN
2005002500
.
OCLC
57577371
.
OL
8166470M
– via
Internet Archive
. p. 2:
Dickey's entrance into World War II immersed him in that element which would transfix his imagination. He was a P-61 navigator, part of the 418th Night Fighter Squadron stationed in the Philippine Islands, then in the process of being turned from a defensive unit into a squadron whose sorties would be primarily offensive, flying intruder missions to bomb and strafe
- ^
"James Dickey | U.S. Consultant in Poetry, 1966-1968"
.
United States Poet Laureate
.
Library of Congress
. n.d.
Archived
from the original on 19 April 2021
. Retrieved
1 February
2022
.
- ^
Hart, Henry
(1 April 2000).
James Dickey: The World as a Lie
(First ed.).
Picador USA
.
ISBN
978-0-31-220320-7
.
LCCN
99054788
.
OCLC
247859178
.
OL
50392M
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
Currey, Mason (2 May 2013).
"Is the Key to Becoming a Great Writer Having a Day Job?"
.
Slate
.
eISSN
1091-2339
.
ISSN
1090-6584
.
OCLC
1010591826
.
Archived
from the original on 16 June 2021
. Retrieved
31 January
2022
.
James Dickey attempted a similar balancing act between writing and advertising, only he flagrantly deceived his bosses in order to work on his poetry in the office (and eventually got fired for his obvious disregard for his advertising duties).
- ^
a
b
"Buckdancer's Choice: Poems | Winner, National Book Awards 1966 for Poetry"
.
National Book Foundation
. 1966.
Archived
from the original on 20 October 2021
. Retrieved
31 January
2022
.
- ^
James Dickey reads "The Moon Ground," 1969
on
YouTube
- ^
— (15 March 1992).
"The Strength of Fields"
.
The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945?1992
. Wesleyan Poetry.
Wesleyan University Press
. pp. 378?379.
ISBN
978-0-81-952202-3
.
LCCN
91050811
.
OCLC
767498572
.
OL
1566756M
– via
Internet Archive
.
- ^
Nadeau, Barbie Latza (16 July 2020).
"Legendary Foreign Correspondent Chris Dickey Dies in Paris"
. Europe.
The Daily Beast
.
Archived
from the original on 18 January 2022
. Retrieved
1 February
2022
.
We talked at length about what it was like to be the poet and novelist James Dickey's son and about the summer he was on the film set with Burt Reynolds when they filmed Deliverance, which his father wrote. He had just written his memoir Summer of Deliverance and the stories were raw, and he was honest about the pain of his father's genius and his mother's demons.
- ^
a
b
Davison, Peter
(1 August 1998).
"The Burden of James Dickey"
.
The Atlantic Monthly
. Vol. 282, no. 2.
eISSN
2151-9463
.
ISSN
1072-7825
.
LCCN
93642583
.
OCLC
1098736991
.
Archived
from the original on 21 January 2022.
Christopher Dickey watched his father and his mother sink into deep alcoholism, watched the enormous talents of the poet dissipate, watched his mother die of complications from cirrhosis and his father marry, in haste, one of his young students, who later became addicted to narcotics.
- ^
Trueheart, Charles
(24 May 1987).
"James Dickey's Celestial Navigations"
.
The Washington Post
.
ISSN
0190-8286
.
LCCN
sn79002172
.
OCLC
2269358
. Retrieved
1 February
2022
.
In what might be called Dickey's second life, he's the husband of a 35-year-old former student, Deborah Dodson Dickey, called Debba, who is nearly as tall as he, and he is 6 feet 3. He married her in 1976, two months and two days after the death of his first wife. They have a little girl named Bronwen, who is 6.
- ^
Dickey, Bronwen
(10 May 2016).
Pit Bull: The Battle over an American Icon
(Illustrated ed.).
Vintage Books
.
ISBN
978-0-30-796176-1
.
LCCN
2017385667
.
OCLC
991422085
.
OL
27405899M
.
External links
[
edit
]
- The James Dickey Page
- James Dickey papers at the University of South Carolina Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
- James Dickey Newsletter & Society
- CNN Audio Clips with James Dickey
- 1977 audio interview of James Dickey by Stephen Banker
- James Dickey
at Academy of American Poets ? with brief biography and selected list of works
- James Dickey Papers
at Washington University in St. Louis
- Joyce Morrow Pair collection of James Dickey at the University of South Carolina Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
- Matthew J. Bruccoli collection of James Dickey at the University of South Carolina Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
- Donald J. and Ellen Greiner collection of James Dickey at the University of South Carolina Department of Rare Books and Special Collections
- James Dickey
Archived
February 1, 2013, at the
Wayback Machine
in
New Georgia Encyclopedia
- James Dickey
Archived
December 28, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
at Modern American Poetry
- James Dickey
at
IMDb
- James Dickey Revisited
- online "themed issue" of the
South Carolina Review
that collects all pieces by and about James Dickey that have been published in that literary journal since 2001, in addition to content related to a James Dickey Festival that was hosted at
Clemson University
.
- Bronwen Dickey on her father's legacy
Archived
December 29, 2015, at the
Wayback Machine
- Clark Powell Harbinger, "James Dickey: A Personal Memory"
Archived
March 3, 2016, at the
Wayback Machine
- "James Dickey, The Art of Poetry No. 20"
.
The Paris Review
(Interview). No. 65. Interviewed by Franklin Ashley. Spring 1976.
- James Dickey Papers
at Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
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