born Dec. 22, 1869, Head Tide, Maine, U.S.
died April 6, 1935, New York, N.Y.
U.S. poet.
He attended Harvard briefly, then he endured years of poverty and obscurity before his poetry began to attract attention. He is best known for short dramatic lyrics about the lives (mostly tragic) of the people in a small New England village; these include "Richard Cory" and "Miniver Cheevy." Among his collections are The Children of the Night (1897), The Man Against the Sky (1916), and Collected Poems (1921, Pulitzer Prize). He also wrote long narrative poems, including Merlin (1917), Lancelot (1920), The Man Who Died Twice (1924, Pulitzer Prize), Tristram (1927, Pulitzer Prize), and Amaranth (1934).