Edward Field | |
|---|---|
| Born | June 7, 1924 Brooklyn, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation(s) | Poet, author |
| Partner | Neil Derrick (died 2018) |
| Awards | Lamont Poetry Prize (Academy of American Poets) |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States |
| Branch | United States Army Air Forces |
| Rank | Officer |
| Unit | 8th Air Force |
| Battles / wars | World War II |
Edward Field (born June 7, 1924) is an American poet, novelist, memoirist, and anthologist.
Field was born in Brooklyn, New York City, to a family of Ashkenazi immigrants. He grew up in Lynbrook, New York and being Jewish, [1] [2] he and his family faced antisemitism and discrimination. He played cello in the "Field Family Trio", which had a weekly radio program on WGBB Freeport. He served in World War II in the 8th Air Force in England and France, as a navigator in heavy bombers, and flew 25 missions over Germany. In February 1945, he took part in a raid on Berlin with his B-17. His bomber was crippled by flak and crash-landed in the North Sea. All ten crew members made it into the plane's life rafts, but only seven of them managed to resist until the moment they were rescued by a British air-sea boat hours later.
In 1959, Field met Neil Derrick. As Field later remembered: “I was working in the typing pool of an advertising agency, and the supervisor assigned the typewriter next to me to a new temp, a terrific-looking young man from California named Neil Derrick. It was a case of immediate attraction between WASP and Jew.” [3] In 1972, the couple moved to the nonprofit artists' housing Westbeth Artists Community in New York City's West Village. [4] Derrick died on January 5, 2018. Field continues to reside at Westbeth and is consider one of the building's icons. [5]
Edward Field began writing poetry during World War II, after a Red Cross worker handed him an anthology of poetry. In 1963, Field's book Stand Up, Friend, With Me was awarded the prestigious Lamont Poetry Prize from the Academy of American Poets and was published by Grove Press. William Carlos Williams called the collection “clean, straight writing that knows what a poem could be made of.” Mark Van Doren, a Lamont Prize judge, said the book was “one of the best I have read in years.” A year after the book's publication, Field was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.
In 1966, a film for which Field wrote the narration, To Be Alive! , won an Academy Award for Best Documentary (Short Subject).
In 1978, Field and his partner Neil Derrick (1931–2018), [6] began writing and publishing novels under the pseudonym Bruce Elliot. Their first was The Potency Clinic. Their historical novel Village about Greenwich Village, where the couple were long-time residents, became a bestseller. Set in 1845, Village includes cameo appearances by historical figures such as Walt Whitman, Henry James, Mabel Dodge, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and others. The novel was later revised and re-issued at TheVillagers.
In 1979, Field edited the anthology A Geography of Poets. Decades later, Field worked with Gerald Locklin and Charles Stetler to edit a sequel, A New Geography of Poets (1992).
In 1992, he received a Lambda Award for Counting Myself Lucky, Selected Poems 1963–1992. [7]
In 2003, editor Harvey Shapiro included Field's narrative poem "World War II" is part of the Poets of World War II anthology, published by the Library of America.
In 2005, Field received the Bill Whitehead Award for Lifetime Achievement from Publishing Triangle. That same year, the University of Wisconsin Press published his literary memoirs The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag and Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era, the title of which refers to the writer Alfred Chester. [8] Publishers Weekly called the book "very charming" and "of serious interest to anyone intrigued by New York literary life of the 1950s and '60s." [9]
Field's most recent book After the Fall: Poems Old and New was published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 2007. Reviewing the book, Publishers Weekly wrote that Field is "direct, likable, modest, charming, a storyteller." [10] The Brooklyn Rail wrote of the book: “Anyone who's ever sniffled about not understanding contemporary poetry should read Edward Field, posthaste. Accessible and urgent, he keeps it taut and in the process we are taught.” [11] Booklist wrote “When [Field] writes about the (his) body, he is as wondrous as Ginsberg but commonplace and funny rather than cosmic and vatic. When he's vulgar (reasonably often), he’s like a benign, though filthy, stand-up comic, minus the cynicism. . . . But if humor predominates in his older work, anger suffuses the new poems, written after the fall of the Twin Towers. Because that anger is mastered and channeled into cogent, down-to-earth speech, Field's may be the best 9/11 protest poems yet.”
In 2011, British editor Diana Athill published Instead of a Book: Letters to a Friend (Granta Books) a collection of letters from her to Field chronicling their intimate correspondence spanning more than 30 years. [12] [13]
In 2019, Field's niece Diane Weis produced the animated film Minor Accident of War, inspired by his memories of survival during the World War II. Designed by Piotr Kabat, the film is narrated by Field using the text from his poem "World War II". [14]
Across his career, Field has given readings at the Library of Congress and the 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center, as well as hundreds of colleges and universities. He has taught poetry workshops at the 92NY’s Unterberg Poetry Center, Sarah Lawrence College, and Hofstra University. In addition to the Lamont Poetry Prize, Field's other honors include the Shelley Memorial Award and the Prix de Rome from the American Academy of Arts & Letters. He serves as editor of The Alfred Chester Society Newsletter.
Field turned 100 on June 7, 2024. [15] Publishers Weekly has said of Field: "Irreplaceable in the history of gay American writing, Field helped invent some of the attitudes and the subgenres that are now in common use." [10]
Field's poetry and essays have appeared in, among others, The New Yorker , The New York Review of Books , Gay & Lesbian Review , Partisan Review , The Nation , Evergreen Review , The New York Times Book Review , Michigan Quarterly Review , Raritan Quarterly Review , Parnassus , and The Kenyon Review .
