Robert Lowell was born on March 1st, 1917. Lowell spent his childhood in Boston. He studied at Harvard before being transferred to Kenyon College in Gambier, from where he graduated in 1940.
He wrote a variety of poems. ‘Land of Unlikeness’ published in 1944, is his first collection of poetry. A yearning for spiritual security, and the depiction of a world in crisis, are features of these poems. ‘The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket’, an elegy to his cousin Warren Winslow, who was lost at sea during World War II, and ‘Colloquy in Black Rock’, celebrating the feast of Corpus Christi, are two famous poems in this collection.
Lowell’s ‘Life Studies’, won the National Book Award for poetry. ‘Revere Street’, an autobiographical essay and a series of 15 confessional poems were included in ‘Life Studies’.
Of these, ‘Waking in the Blue’, and ‘Skunk Hour’, deal with Lowell’s traumatic experience of mental illness. Lowell passed away on September 12th, 1977