Merlin

Edwin Arlington Robinson was born on the 22nd December 1869 in Tide in Lincoln County, Maine.

His childhood was described by him as ‘stark and unhappy’. His name was drawn out of a hat from a fellow vacationer from Arlington Massachusetts when fellow holiday makers decided that his parents had waited long enough at 6 months to name him. It was a name he despised and reflects the station to which his parents had placed him; there great hope at his birth that he would be a girl to complement their two sons.

His pessimistic mood carried him to adulthood and a doomed encounter with Emma Loehen Shepherd who did however encourage his poetry. Edwin was thought too young to be her companion and so his elder, middle brother, Herman was assigned to marry her. It was a humiliating blow to Edwin and during their marriage on the 12th February 1890 he stayed home and wrote ‘Cortege.’

In the fall of 1891 Edwin entered Harvard, taking classes in English, French and Shakespeare. He felt at ease with the Ivy League and made great efforts to be published in one of the Harvard literary journals. Indeed the Harvard Advocate published ‘Ballade Of A Ship’ but then his career appeared to stall. His father died and although he returned to Harvard for a second year, it was to be his last. However, it was also the start of several life-long friendships.

In 1893 he returned to Gardiner, Maine as the man of the household. Herman by this time had become an alcoholic, having suffered business failures, and was now estranged from Emma.

Edwin began farming but continued to write. He also quickly developed a close relationship with Emma, who had now moved back to Gardiner with her children after Herman’s death.

Although he proposed twice, he was rejected and in consequence moved to New York to start afresh.

But it was a salutary experience. Although surrounded by artists he had little money and life was difficult.

In 1896 he published his own book, ’The Torrent And The Night Before’, paying 100 dollars for 500 copies. Edwin wanted it to be a surprise for his mother, but days before its arrival she died of diphtheria.

His second volume, ‘The Children Of The Night’, had a wider circulation. At the behest of President Roosevelt, whose son was an avid admirer, he was given a job in 1905 at the New York Customs Office, although it appears his real job was ‘to help American letters’.

Either way his success began to widen, and his influence prosper. During the 1920s he won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry on three separate occasions. In 1922 for ‘Collected Poems’ again in 1925 for ‘The Man Who Died Twice’ and finally in 1928 for ‘Tristram’.

It was a great feat to be so highly honoured and recognized.

During the last twenty years of his life, he became a regular summer resident at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, where he became the object of fascination by several women. But he never married.

Edwin Arlington Robinson died of cancer on the 6th April 1935 in the New York Hospital. He was 65.

© 2025 Portable Poetry (E-kirja): 9781806370290

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E-kirja: 20. heinäkuuta 2025