James L. Weil: Master of Fine Poetry and Printing

Biographical Profiles of the Elizabeth Poets

These brief profiles were compiled in 2009 by the Grolier Club, and some have become outdated. We’ll try to revise them as time allows and information is received.

• Carroll Arnett (1927–1997)

  Born in Oklahoma City of Cherokee-French ancestry. BA, Beloit College; MA, University of Texas. Some writing appears under his Cherokee name of Gogisgi. Was a professor of English at Central Michigan University.

• Martin Booth (1944–2004)

  Born in Lancashire, England. Brought up in Hong Kong, which he left for England in 1964. Trained as a teacher at Trent Park College of Education. Was influenced by the poet Edmund Blunden. A novelist as well as a poet. Taught in a number of secondary schools. Founder of the Sceptre Press, which featured poetry. In 1971 won a Gregory Award from the Society of Authors, which was also won by Geoffrey Hill and Seamus Heaney.

• William Bronk (1918–1999)

  One of the most celebrated of the Elizabeth Press poets and a close friend of Weil, who was introduced to him by Cid Corman. Born in Hudson Falls in upstate New York. Graduate of Dartmouth College. Taught one year at Union College, but spent most of his career running the family coal and lumber business in Hudson Falls. His first book, Light and Dark (1956) was published by Corman’s Origin Press. Termed a metaphysical poet, he was a minimalist who did not waste words. Winner of an American Book Award for Life Supports in 1982.

• Spencer Brown (1909–1989)

  Born in Hartford, Connecticut. Received BA and MA from Harvard University. Teacher of English and Latin at Fieldston School, New York, 1938–65; principal,1965–71. Poetry included in Poets of Today (Charles Scribner’s, 1956).

• Cid Corman (1924–2004)

  Born in Boston. Elected to Phi Beta Kappa at Tufts University. Lived in Kyoto, Japan for many years. Prolific poet of no specific school, but a minimalist whose poetry some have said has an Asian sensitivity about it. Publisher of the literary magazine, Origin which had among its contributors Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Robert Creeley, Robert Duncan, Charles Olson, Lorine Niedecker, and Paul Blackburn. Long, literary correspondence with William Bronk, whom he introduced to Weil. Edited The Granite Pail: The Selected Poems of Lorine Niedicker, published by Gnomon, Frankfort, KY, 1996.

• R. R. Cuscaden (1932– )

  Born in northern Illinois. Was an editor of Illinois Central Magazine in Chicago, and edited and published Midwest: A Magazine of Poetry and Opinion from 1961 to 1966. An early publisher of Charles Bukowski. Other contributors included Cid Corman, Robert Bly, and August Derleth.

• Frederick W. Eckman (1924–1996)

  Born in Continental, Ohio. BA, MA, and PhD from Ohio State University. Taught at Ohio State University, University of Texas, and Bowling Green State University (Ohio). Co-founded the creative writing program at Bowling Green. Co-editor of the literary journal Golden Goose, which published Robert Creeley’s first book of poems. In 1999 the National Poetry Foundation published Over West: Selected Writings of Frederick Eckman, which included comments by Robert Creeley, Cid Corman, Theodore Enslin, Gena Ford, and Simon Perchik.

• Larry Eigner (1927–1996)

  Born in Swampscott, Massachusetts. Often associated with the Black Mountain Poets centered around Charles Olson. Many of these poets were published in Cid Corman’s Origin magazine, including Robert Duncan, Denise Levertov, and Robert Creeley. Afflicted with cerebral palsy at birth and home schooled. Taught himself to communicate in his teens by use of the typewriter. Moved to San Francisco Bay area in 1978.

• Theodore Enslin (1925–2011)

  Born in Chester, Pennsylvania. His father was a biblical scholar and his mother, a Latin scholar. Studied musical composition as a young man. Cid Corman’s Origin Press published his first book, The Work Proposed, in 1958. Moved to rural Maine in 1960 and has lived there since then. The Maine landscape and his interest in music have influenced his poetry.

• Gena Ford

  Lived in Portland, Oregon. Poems appeared in Poetry and Sparrow literary magazines. Taught at Mt. Angel College.

• Anselm Hollo (1934–2013)

  Born in Finland. Has been a permanent resident of the United States since the late 1960s. Poetry style influenced by American beat poets. Has translated poetry and other writing from Finnish, German, Swedish and French into English. In 2004, won the Harold Marin Lander Translation Award. Has taught at a number of colleges including SUNY Buffalo, the Iowa Writers Workshop of the University of Iowa, and the University of Colorado. Since 1989, has taught in the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetry at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado where he is a full professor.

• David Jaffin (1937–2024)

  Born in New York City. Studied history, art history, and psychology at New York University from which he was awarded a Ph.D. Married a German Christian, moved to Germany in 1961, and converted from Judaism to Christianity. He studied theology at Tubingen University from which he received a degree. He served as a Lutheran pastor for 20 years in Wuttenberg. Currently devotes full time to writing poetry. Influenced by Wallace Stevens. Could be called a metaphysical poet.

• John Judson (1930–2019)

  Born in Stratford, Connecticut. He received a BA from Colby College, and an MFA from the University of Iowa. In 1963 he started the literary magazine, Juniper Press, and in 1965, became a professor at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. He is now retired from the University. In 2000, he received the Christopher Sholes Award for long service and support of writing.

• Christine Labelle

  A poet active in the 1960s, including literary correspondence with Theodore Enslin.

• James Laughlin (1914–1997)

  Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Descended from the founder of Jones and Laughlin Steel Company. A graduate of Harvard University. Encouraged by Ezra Pound to enter publishing, he founded New Directions. His company was one of the most significant forces in modernist literature in the twentieth century, publishing such greats as William Carlos Williams, Elizabeth Bishop, Wallace Stevens, Dylan Thomas and e e cummings. Laughlin also was a recognized poet stressing a simple style. In 1992 he was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.

• John Levy (1951– )

  Served as a lawyer in Tucson, Arizona with the Public Defender’s Office. Published in a number of literary magazines. Tel-let published his chapbook, Oblivion, Tyrants, Crumbs in 2003.

• Barriss Mills (1910–1988)

  Head of Purdue University English Department in the 1950s and 1960s. Retired in 1974. Noted translator and poet.

• Lorine Niedecker (1903–1970)

  Born and lived in a rural wilderness in Wisconsin. Attended Beloit College for two years, but lived a hardscrabble life close to poverty for most of her days. Stressed simplicity and spare language in her poetry. An early significant influence was the objectivist poet Louis Zukofsky. (Other objectivist poets included William Carlos Williams and Kenneth Rexroth.) In later years Cid Corman published a number of her poems in his magazine, Origin. Corman also wrote the introduction to a book of her selected poems in 1966. Her Collected Works was published by the University of California Press in 2002.

• Simon Perchik (1923–2022)

  Born in Paterson, New Jersey. BA English and LLB Law from New York University. He practiced law from 1950 to 1975, and served as Assistant District Attorney for Suffolk County, New York from 1975 to 1980, then retired to write poetry full time. Resided in East Hampton, New York. His work has appeared The New Yorker, Poetry magazine, and The Partisan Review, among others. Was described by Library Journal as "the most widely published unknown poet in America."

• John Perlman (1946– )

  Born in Alexandria, Virginia. BA from Ohio State University and MA in education from Iona College, in New Rochelle, New York. For many years taught English at Mamaroneck (New York) High School. Edited and published some literary magazines including Roof and Shuttle. Some have associated his work with the modernist L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poets.

• Felix Pollak (1909–1987)

  Born in Vienna, Austria. Immigrated to the United States to escape the Holocaust. University of Buffalo, BALS, 1941; University of Michigan, AMLS, 1949; University of Vienna, Dr.Jur., 1953. Career as a librarian, curator of rare books at Northwestern University 1949–1959, and at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1959-1974.

• Margaret Randall (1936– )

  Born in New York City. Attended University of New Mexico, 1954–55. A poet, writer, and photographer. Interest in Latin America. Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of New Mexico, 1984–87; Visiting Professor of English, Trinity College, Connecticut, 1987–88 and 1990, 1992, and 1994; Visiting Professor of Latin American Studies, Oberlin College, 1988; Professor of International Affairs, Macalester College, Minnesota, 1989, Visiting Professor of Women’s Studies, University of Delaware, 1991. Recipient of PEN New Mexico Dorothy Doyle Lifetime Achievement Award for Writing and Human Rights Activism, 2004.

• Aleksis Rannit (1914–1985)

  Born in Kallaste, Estonia, he immigrated to West Germany after the Soviet Union began occupying the country in 1939. He came to the United States in 1953, and worked in the Slavic collection of the New York Public Library. He was curator of the Slavic and East European collections at the Yale University Library for 20 years. In addition to his books of poetry he also was an art critic and scholar in Slavic cultural affairs. He received honorary degrees from Stockholm University in 1978, and from the University of South Korea in 1981.

• Frank Samperi (1933–1991)

  Born in Brooklyn, New York. A minimalist, and transcendental poet, greatly influenced by Dante. Cid Corman published some of Samperi’s poems in Origin.

• Felix Stefanile (1920–2009)

  Born in Long Island, New York. Was a poet and translator. BA, City College of New York in 1944. Served in U. S. Army; held clerical jobs after World War II. In 1954, Stefanile and his wife started the long-lived poetry journal, Sparrow. He was appointed a visiting poet and lecturer at Purdue in 1961, stayed on as a member of the faculty, and was made a full professor in 1969. Taught at Purdue for the remainder of his career, and won a number of awards for poetry and teaching. Retired in 1987, and continued to edit Sparrow.

• John Taggart (1942– )

  Born in Guthrie Center, Iowa. BA, Earlham College in Indiana; MA, University of Chicago; PhD, Syracuse University. (His 1974 doctoral dissertation was on objectivist poetics and the work of Louis Zukofsky.) Was editor and publisher of the literary magazine, Maps, in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Edited a 1968 issue of Truck devoted to the work of Theodore Enslin. Was a professor of English at Shippensburg (PA) University, retiring in 2001.

• Bernard A. Uronovitz (1928–1983)

  Active in poetry in San Francisco in the 1960s. Appeared in the book, Six Amearicann Poets, edited by Jack Micheline, published by Harvard Book Co. in 1964.

• James L. Weil (1929–2006)

  Born in New York City. AB, University of Chicago, 1950. Certificate, Oxford University, 1954. Lived in New Rochelle, New York. In earlier years engaged in electrical component manufacturing (1954–68). Devoted remainder of his career to writing and publishing poetry.

• J. D. Whitney (1941– )

  Born in Pasadena, California. Awarded a BA from the University of Michigan in 1962, and an MA from the same school in 1966. Received the Hopwood Award for Poetry from the University of Michigan in 1964. Has taught in the University of Wisconsin system since 1966. Named Professor of the Year in 1995. At present, Professor of English, University of Wisconsin, Marathon County. From 1965–1972, edited IT, a small magazine of contemporary American poetry that published, among others, Donald Hall, Robert Bly, Theodore Enslin, and Anselm Hollo.