John Hollander (1929–2013); image: Thomas McDonald for The New York Times
John Hollander, the poet, literary critic, and valued contributor to The New Criterion, died on Saturday.
Hollander was born and raised in New York, attending the Bronx High School of Science, continuing on to Columbia where he received both a B.A. and an M.A. He would later complete a Ph.D. at Indiana University. During his Columbia years, he studied under Mark Van Doren and Lionel Trilling, and became friends with Allen Ginsberg who was several years ahead of him.
His first collection, A Crackling of Thorns, was selected for publication in the Yale Series of Younger Poets in 1958 by W. H. Auden—a constant source of inspiration for Hollander. He continued to grow his reputation throughout the next decade and in 1966 he took a position at Hunter College. He moved to Yale in 1977 where he would remain throughout his academic career. He retired as a Sterling Professor Emeritus of English in 2002.
In an interview, Hollander remarked that, like Auden, “I wanted to be read by philosophers and scientists and political theorists, not just by literary readers.” He did just that, bridging the gap between artists and the academy. As a result, he had numerous achievements to his name, serving as the Poet Laureate of Connecticut, a MacArthur Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
J. D. McClatchy, quoted in the New York Times obituary for Hollander, describes the profundity of his passing: “’His mind was singularly capacious, filled with baseball statistics, detective novels, mathematical formulas, vintage wines, German hymns, you name it,’ Mr. McClatchy wrote. ‘It is said of a man like John Hollander that when he dies it is like the burning of the library at Alexandria.’”
The October issue of The New Criterion will include an appreciation of Hollander, written by Poetry Editor David Yezzi.
You can read Hollander’s contributions to the magazine here.