- Collection:
- Big Joy Digital Collection
- Title:
- Edward Field interview, 2010-06
- Creator:
- Field, Edward, 1924-
- Contributor to Resource:
- O'Malley, Ruben
Silha, Stephen
Slade, Eric - Publisher:
- Georgia State University Library
- Date of Original:
- 2010-06
- Subject:
- American poetry
Poets, American
Homosexuality--Psychological aspects
Nineteen fifties - People:
- Broughton, James, 1913-1999
- Location:
- United States, New York, New York County, New York, 40.7142691, -74.0059729
- Medium:
- interviews
- Type:
- Moving Image
- Format:
- video/mp4
- Description:
- Topics discussed: differences between the art of poetry on East and West Coasts of the US; Freudian/Reichian and Jungian approaches to sexuality and why gay men tried to "go straight"; The 1950s as an oppressive decade for gay people, many fired for being gay; The "New Criticism" of T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens; Writers' workshops for poets in Iowa and Stanford; James Broughton as lyric poet in Emily Dickinson tradition; Broughton as not a Beat, but a spiritual poet; Reads some Broughton poetry, especially love poems to Joel
Poet Edward Field, born 1924 in Brooklyn, New York, grew up in suburban Lynbrook, L.I., where, with his two older sisters on violin and piano, he played cello on their weekly radio program ?The Field Family Trio and Their Romantic Melodies.? During WWII he dropped out of New York University to enlist in the Air Force where he became a navigator in a B-17 and flew 27 bombing missions over Germany. It was on his fifth, over Berlin, that his plane was shot up and ditched in the North Sea, the subject of his much-anthologized poem ?World War II?. He discovered poetry when, as he was boarding a troop train, a Red Cross worker handed him a paperback anthology of poems, and after his discharge and another short stint at NYU, Field dropped out again and went to Paris to concentrate on his poetry. In 1963, his first book, Stand Up, Friend, With Me, after 25 rejections from publishers, won the Lamont Award and was published by Grove Press. Altogether, Field has published nine books of poetry, his memoirs, a travel book, two anthologies of American poetry, and the narration for an Academy Award-winning documentary To Be Alive (1965). Other awards include the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, and The Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award. His long-time partner, Neil Derrick, with whom he wrote several novels including the best-selling Village by "Bruce Elliot", died in 2018. He continues to live at the Westbeth artists housing project in New York City, where he is working on his Collected Poems. - Local Identifier:
- W146_FieldE_201006
- Metadata URL:
- http://digitalcollections.library.gsu.edu/cdm/ref/collection/bigjoy/id/19
- Language:
- eng
- Rights Holder:
- This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. In addition, no permission is required from the rights-holder(s) for educational uses. For other uses, you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
- Bibliographic Citation (Cite As):
- Cite as: Edward Field, interviewed by Stephen Silha and Eric Slade, June 2010, Big Joy Collection. Special Collections and Archives, Georgia State University.
- Extent:
- 00:49:00
- Original Collection:
- Big Joy Collection
- Holding Institution:
- Georgia State University. Special Collections
- Rights:
-
