Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement. He was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota.
Career
Bly's early collection of poems, Silence in the Snowy Fields, was published in 1962, and its plain style had considerable influence on American poems of the next two decades. The following year, he published "A Wrong Turning in American Poetry", an essay.
In 1966, Bly co-founded American Writers Against the Vietnam War. In 1968, he signed the “Writers and Editors War Tax Protest” pledge, vowing to refuse tax payments in protest against the war. When he won the National Book Award for The Light Around the Body, he contributed the prize money to the Resistance. During the 1970s, he published eleven books of poetry, essays, and translations. During the 1980s he published Loving a Woman in Two Worlds, The Wingéd Life: Selected Poems and Prose of Thoreau, The Man in the Black Coat Turns, and A Little Book on the Human Shadow.
Among his most famous works is Iron John: A Book About Men, an international bestseller which has been translated into many languages.
Bly died at his home in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 21, 2021, at the age of 94.
References
Other websites
The Robert Bly Web Site
Profile and poems of Bly at PoetryFoundation.org
"Robert Bly reads 'Loon's Cry' " for the WGBH series, New Television Workshop
Bly profile, The Academy of American Poets
MenWeb - Men's Issues Interview with Robert Bly
Modern American Poetry critical essays on Bly's works. University of Illinois
The Human Shadow and other essays, articles and interviews by Robert Bly. Audio.
