George Starbuck

{{Infobox writer |name=George Starbuck |image = |image_size = 200px |birth_name = George Edwin Starbuck |birth_date=June 15, 1931 |birth_place=Columbus, Ohio |death_date={{death date and age|1996|8|15|1931|6|15}} |death_place=Tuscaloosa, Alabama |alma_mater=Chadwick School California Institute of Technology University of California, Berkeley American Academy in Rome University of Chicago Harvard University |genre=Poetry |occupation=Poet }}

'''George Edwin Starbuck''' (June 15, 1931 in Columbus, Ohio – August 15, 1996 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama) was an American poet of the neo-formalist school.

==Life== Starbuck studied at Chadwick School, the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, Berkeley, the American Academy in Rome, the University of Chicago, and Harvard University.<ref>{{cite web|author=Jillian Frakes 2012 OR POL Champion |url=http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poet.html?id=6515 |title=Poetry Out Loud |publisher=Poetry Out Loud |accessdate=2012-11-23 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727182148/http://www.poetryoutloud.org/poems/poet.html?id=6515 |archivedate=2011-07-27 }}</ref> He also studied under Robert Lowell in the Boston University workshop with Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.<ref>{{Cite journal|url=http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2004/09/starbuck_the_great.html|title=Who is George Starbuck, anyway?|journal=Slate |date=13 September 2004|last1=McHenry |first1=Eric }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/01/having-martinis-with-plath-and-sexton/|title=Having Martinis with Plath and Sexton by Harriet Staff|date=24 July 2021}}</ref> He taught at the Iowa Writers Workshop, Boston University, and the State University of New York, Buffalo. He was fired by SUNY-Buffalo for not taking a loyalty oath, but was vindicated by the Supreme Court in 1965.<ref>{{cite web|last=McHenry |first=Eric |url=http://www.slate.com/id/2106536/ |title=Who Is George Starbuck, Anyway? - Slate Magazine |publisher=Slate.com |date= 13 September 2004|accessdate=2012-11-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu:8080/findingaids/view?docId=ead/archives/ubar_ms0005.xml |title=Richard Lipsitz Papers, 1964-1967 at the State University of New York at Buffalo. University Archives |publisher=Libweb1.lib.buffalo.edu:8080 |date= |accessdate=2012-11-23}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://openjurist.org/345/f2d/236/keyishian-v-board-of-regents-of-university-of-state-of-new-york-c-j-a |title=345 F2d 236 Keyishian v. Board of Regents of University of State of New York C J a |year=1965 |publisher=OpenJurist |volume=F2d |issue=345 |page=236 |accessdate=2012-11-23}}</ref> His students included Joshua Clover, Maxine Kumin, Peter Davison, Emily Hiestand, Mary Baine Campbell, Craig Lucas, James Hercules Sutton, Shreela Ray, and Askold Melnyczuk.<ref>{{cite web |author=Harvard News Office |url=http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/02.19/05-poet.html |title=Harvard Gazette: Local Poet, Teacher George Starbuck Honored |publisher=News.harvard.edu |date=2004-02-19 |accessdate=2012-11-23 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120406082337/http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2004/02.19/05-poet.html |archivedate=2012-04-06 }}</ref>

Starbuck had five children: Margaret, Stephen, John, Anthony, and Joshua.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1996/08/17/arts/george-starbuck-wry-poet-is-dead-at-65.html|title=George Starbuck, Wry Poet, Is Dead at 65|last=Thomas|first=Robert McG. Jr.|date=1996-08-17|work=The New York Times|access-date=2019-07-02|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331}}</ref> His papers are held at the University of Alabama library.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.lib.ua.edu/content/findingaids/pdf/ms_1337.pdf |title=W |date= |accessdate=2012-11-23}}</ref>

Starbuck's work is marked by clever rhymes, witty asides, and the fusing of Romantic themes with cynicism about modern life. For example, his book ''Bone Thoughts'' was published with half its pages blank, and he called his style of formalism "SLABS" (Standard Length And Breadth Sonnets). He was not widely appreciated in the mainstream culture during his lifetime, but two collections of his poems published in the early 2000s, ''The Works: Poems Selected from Five Decades'' and ''Visible Ink'', helped win him a wider audience. Julie Larios writes of Starbuck, "Often wrongly pigeonholed as a light verse poet, he was a technical master and superb ironist."<ref>{{cite web |last1=Larios |first1=Julie |title=Undersung – George Starbuck and the Heavy Burden of Light Verse |url=https://numerocinqmagazine.com/2013/08/05/undersung-george-starbuck-and-the-heavy-burden-of-light-verse-julie-larios/ |website=Numéro Cinq |date=5 August 2013 |access-date=14 October 2023}}</ref>

Starbuck's best-known poems include "Tuolumne," "On an Urban Battlefield," and "Sonnet With a Different Letter At the End of Every Line."

==Awards== * 1993 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry * 1982 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, for ''The Argot Merchant Disaster: Poems New and Selected'' * 1960 Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition

==Partial bibliography== *''The Works: Poems Selected from Five Decades'', University of Alabama Press, 2003 *''Translations from the English'', University of Alabama Press, 2003 *''Visible Ink'', University of Alabama Press, 2002 *''Space Saver Sonnets'', Bits Press, 1986 *''Richard the Third in a Fourth of a Second'', Bits Press, 1986 *''The Argot Merchant Disaster: Poems New and Selected'', Little, Brown & Co., 1982 *''Talkin' B.A. Blues'', Pym-Randall Press, 1980 *''Desperate Measures'', D. R. Godine, August 1978 *''Elegy in a Country Churchyard'', Pym-Randall Press, September 1975 *''White Paper'', Little, Brown & Co., 1966 *''Bone Thoughts'', Yale University Press, 1960

===Anthologies=== *{{cite book| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GMV1-DVh4sIC&q=George+Starbuck&pg=PA300| chapter=Of Late| title=American War Poetry: An Anthology| editor=Lorrie Goldensohn| publisher=Columbia University Press| year= 2006| isbn= 978-0-231-13310-4 }}

==References== {{Reflist}}

==External links== *{{cite book| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=O_JYq4dMQr4C&q=George+Starbuck&pg=PA377| title=Selected letters| editor=Ralph Maud| publisher=University of California Press| year= 2000| isbn= 978-0-520-20580-2 }}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Starbuck, George}} Category:1931 births Category:1996 deaths Category:20th-century American poets Category:Boston University faculty Category:California Institute of Technology alumni Category:University of California, Berkeley alumni Category:University of Chicago alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Category:University at Buffalo faculty Category:Writers from Columbus, Ohio Category:Poets from Ohio Category:Yale Younger Poets winners