{{Short description|American poet (1835–1917)}}{{Infobox writer | image = John James Piatt - National Cyclopaedia of American Biography - vol 8 - 1900.jpg | birth_date = {{Birth date|1835|03|01}} | birth_place = James' Mills, now Milton, Indiana, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|1917|02|16|1835|03|01}} | death_place = Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. | education = Capital University<br />Kenyon College | spouse = {{marriage|Sarah Morgan Bryan|June 18, 1861}} }}
'''John James Piatt''' (March 1, 1835{{snd}}February 16, 1917) was an American poet.
== Early life and education == John James Piatt was born on March 1, 1835, in James' Mills, Dearborn County, Indiana, to Emily (Scott) and John Bear Piatt.<ref name="kunitzhaycraft1938">{{Cite book|editor-last1=Kunitz|editor-first1=Stanley|editor-link1=Stanley Kunitz|editor-last2=Haycraft|editor-first2=Howard|title=American Authors, 1600–1900: A Biographical Dictionary of American Literature|year=1992|orig-year=1938|publisher=H. W. Wilson Company|isbn=0-8242-0001-2|oclc=269102|page=617}}</ref><ref name="gale1999">{{Cite book|last1=Gale|first1=Robert L.|chapter=Piatt, John James (1835-1917), author and diplomat|title=American National Biography|title-link=American National Biography|year=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|language=en|doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.1601292|volume=17|pages=463–464|isbn=0-19-520635-5|oclc=39182280}}</ref> The town was later called Milton and relocated to Ohio County, Indiana.<ref name="gale1999"/> The Piatts moved to Columbus, Ohio, when John James was six.<ref name="dab"/> He attended Capital University and Kenyon College.<ref name="kunitzhaycraft1938"/>
== Career == Piatt was on staff at the ''Ohio State Journal'' (later ''The Columbus Citizen-Journal'') with William Dean Howells, with whom he wrote ''Poems of Two Friends'' (1860).<ref name="hart1983">{{Cite book|last=Hart|first=James D.|author-link=James D. Hart|title=The Oxford Companion to American Literature|title-link=The Oxford Companion to American Literature|year=1983|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-503074-5|edition=5th|oclc=8114573|page=587}}</ref> He published some poems in the ''Louisville Journal'' (later ''The Courier-Journal'') in 1857 and then became an editor of the paper.<ref name="dab"/> He started publishing in ''The Atlantic Monthly'' in 1860.<ref name="dab"/>
Piatt married Sarah Morgan Bryan on June 18, 1861.<ref name="dab">{{Cite book|editor-last1=Malone|editor-first1=Dumas|editor-link1=Dumas Malone|last=Bowerman|first=Sarah G.|chapter=Piatt, John James|title=Dictionary of American Biography|title-link=Dictionary of American Biography|date=1943|publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons; American Council of Learned Societies|oclc=1043041678|volume=14|pages=556–557}}</ref> They lived in Georgetown,<ref name="coyle1962"/> in Washington, D.C., where John became a clerk and then librarian of the United States House of Representatives.<ref name="kunitzhaycraft1938"/> Sarah and John James published two books together: ''The Nests at Washington, and Other Poems'' (1869) and ''The Children Out-of-Doors'' (1885).<ref name="coyle1962"/> According to the ''Cambridge History of American Literature'', Sarah and John James's poems were not interesting for their literary merit but only for their thematization of the American West.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/cambridgehistory0002unse_n9o2|url-access=registration|title=The Cambridge History of American Literature|year=1933|publisher=Macmillan Publishers; Cambridge University Press|oclc=1231684186|volume=3, parts II and III|page=59}}</ref>
Around 1882, Piatt became a United States consul in Cork, and later in Dublin. He came back to the United States in 1893, settling in North Bend, Ohio.<ref name="kunitzhaycraft1938"/>
According to the ''Dictionary of American Biography'', "Piatt's poetry shows the regular meters of his time, but is original and varied in subject mater and appreciative of natural beauty, literary associations, and human feeling."<ref name="dab"/> He was sometimes considered a poet of Ohio, the Ohio Valley, or the Western United States.<ref name="coyle1962">{{Cite book|last1=Orians|first1=G. Harrison|chapter=Piatt, John James|editor-last1=Coyle|editor-first1=William|title=Ohio Authors and Their Books|year=1962|publisher=World Publishing Company|location=Cleveland; New York|oclc=1049965554|page=498–499}}</ref> Contemporary reviewers thought his poems were "cheerful, pleasant, and sunny".<ref name="gale1999"/> Leonidas Warren Payne Jr. considered Piatt one of the "minor poets of the West".<ref>{{Cite book|last=Payne Jr.|first=Leonidas Warren|author-link=Leonidas Warren Payne Jr.|title=History of American Literature|year=1919|publisher=Rand McNally|oclc=1045984206|page=351}}</ref>
He died in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 16, 1917.<ref name="gale1999"/><ref>{{cite news|title=John James Piatt Dead|date=February 17, 1917|work=Baltimore Sun|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/91816436/john-james-piatt-dead/|page=2|via=newspapers.com}}</ref>
== Books == * ''Poems of Two Friends'', with William Dean Howells (1860)<ref name="websterbio">{{Cite book|title=Webster's Biographical Dictionary|year=1976|publisher=G. & C. Merriam Company|isbn=0-87779-343-3|oclc=2702351|page=1181}}</ref> * ''Poems in Sunshine and Firelight'' (1866)<ref name="websterbio"/> * ''The Nests at Washington, and Other Poems'', with Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1869)<ref name="coyle1962"/> * ''Western Windows, and Other Poems'' (1869)<ref name="amauth">{{Cite book|title=American Authors and Books: 1640 to the Present Day|title-link=American Authors and Books|year=1972|publisher=Crown Publishing Group|isbn=0-517-50139-2|edition=3d|oclc=523487|pages=500–501}}</ref> * ''Landmarks'' (1872)<ref name="websterbio"/> * ''Pencilled Fly-Leaves: A Book of Essays in Town and Country'' (1880)<ref name="amauth"/> * ''Idyls and Lyrics of the Ohio Valley'' (1881)<ref name="websterbio"/> * ''The Children Out-of-Doors'', with Sarah Morgan Bryan Piatt (1885) <ref name="coyle1962"/> * ''At the Holy Well'' (1887)<ref name="coyle1962"/> * ''A Book of Gold, and Other Sonnets'' (1889)<ref name="amauth"/> * ''Little New-World Idyls'' (1893)<ref name="websterbio"/> * ''Odes in Ohio'' (1897)<ref name="websterbio"/>
== References == {{Reflist}}
== Further reading == * {{Cite book|chapter=John James Piatt 1835–1917|editor-last1=Blanck|editor-first1=Jacob|editor-link1=Jacob Blanck|title=Bibliography of American Literature|editor-last2=Smyers|editor-first2=Virginia L.|editor-last3=Winship|editor-first3=Michael|year=1983|publisher=Yale University Press; Bibliographical Society of America|volume=7|pages=82–91|oclc=1280706217}} * {{Cite journal|last=Whelan|first=Bernadette|year=2013|title=Poets in Exile: The Piatts in the Queenstown Consulate, 1882–93|journal=New Hibernia Review|volume=17|issue=1|pages=81–97|issn=1092-3977|jstor=24625073}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Piatt, John James}} Category:1835 births Category:1917 deaths Category:People from Wayne County, Indiana Category:19th-century American male writers Category:19th-century American poets Category:Capital University alumni Category:Kenyon College alumni Category:Poets from Indiana Category:Writers from Indiana