Robert Lowell

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell Edited by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 875 pp., illustrated, $45 Here is all of it, all you wanted - and can take - of the epistolary "words in air" passed over a 30-year period (1947-77) between two of the most gifted poets in our last century's latter half. The task of assembling and editing them has been fulfilled in an exemplary manner by Thomas Travisano, author of an excellent critical study of Elizabeth Bishop, and Saskia Hamilton, who three years ago admirably edited Robert Lowell's...

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - W.D. Snodgrass, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who had a nearly 40-year teaching career, died Tuesday in his upstate New York home after a four-month battle with lung cancer. He was 83. Mr. Snodgrass won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1960 for his first book, "Heart's Needle," which grew from heartbreak at losing custody of his daughter in a bitter divorce. Although widely credited as a founding member of the "confessional" school of poetry, Mr. Snodgrass dismissed the label.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - W.D. Snodgrass, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who had a nearly 40-year teaching career, died Tuesday in his upstate New York home after a four-month battle with lung cancer. He was 83. Mr. Snodgrass won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1960 for his first book, "Heart's Needle," which grew from heartbreak at losing custody of his daughter in a bitter divorce. Although widely credited as a founding member of the "confessional" school of poetry, Mr. Snodgrass dismissed the label.

Paul Mariani is one of our most distinguished literary biographers. He is drawn to write about tormented poets, having published lives of John Berryman, Hart Crane, and Robert Lowell. Mariani also writes about troubled poets who seek balance by making lives outside the world of literature, like physician-poet William Carlos Williams. In addition, Mariani has published his own poetry, a memoir of his 30-day Catholic retreat experience, and a study of religious poetry. Now, in his new biography of the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, a man tortured by doubt and guilt and instability, Mariani...

Paul Mariani is one of our most distinguished literary biographers. He is drawn to write about tormented poets, having published lives of John Berryman, Hart Crane, and Robert Lowell. Mariani also writes about troubled poets who seek balance by making lives outside the world of literature, like physician-poet William Carlos Williams. In addition, Mariani has published his own poetry, a memoir of his 30-day Catholic retreat experience, and a study of religious poetry. Now, in his new biography of the Jesuit priest and poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, a man tortured by doubt and guilt and instability, Mariani...

The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch , Knopf, 761 pp., $40 In one of his best essays, poet John Ashbery remembers arriving in New York after his Harvard graduation in 1949 and visiting Kenneth Koch, who had graduated the year before. Koch lived on the third story of a building next to the El at Third Avenue where "one of Kenneth's distractions was to don a rubber gorilla mask and gaze out his window at the passing trains. " Anyone who has read a Koch poem can imagine what it was like to glance up from the humdrum ride and see that gorilla.

In 1974, when poet Anne Sexton committed suicide at age 45 at her home in Weston, her groundbreaking, confessional work had already earned her a Pulitzer Prize and made her one of the best-known writers in America. In her unrelentingly personal poems, she mined childhood traumas, mental illness, and the years she spent in intensive psychotherapy. Her poetry wasn't the only thing to survive her death: Her therapy did, too. Starting when Sexton was 28, a young mother struggling with mental illness but not yet a published poet, she began seeing a Boston psychiatrist named Martin...

Meet the standout performers who earned All-Scholastic honors for their work this winter: RUNNER OF THE YEAR Andre Rolim, Somerville, Junior After winning the 600-meter dash in the Division 1 state championship, Rolim won the event at the All-State competition in a state- and meet-record time of 1:19.94. The 5-9, 150-pound junior is a three-time Division 1 champion, and two-time state and New England champion. Rolim is also on the Highlanders' soccer team. ALL-SCHOLASTICS Gilberto Brown, Lowell, Senior Brown boosted his total of school records in indoor track...

MUSIC Somerville: Early Music Afternoons opens the 2011-12 season with a concert of French Baroque character music performed by Duo Maresienne. Their program includes 18th-century music by Marais, de Visée, Forqueray, Dollé, and Porre. Sunday, 3 p.m. Somerville Museum, One Westwood Rd. $17; $12 students, seniors. 617-666-9810. Winchester: An all-Bach program features performances by Roy Sansom and Heloise Degrugiller, recorders; Dan Ryan, cello & keyboard; and the Jenks Recorder Ensemble.

NEW YORK - C. David Heymann, a literary biographer turned best-selling celebrity biographer who came to wide attention in 1983 after his life of the heiress Barbara Hutton was withdrawn by its publisher because of factual errors, died Wednesday in Manhattan. He was 67. Mr. Heymann died after collapsing in the lobby of his apartment building, said his wife, Beatrice Schwartz. The cause was believed to be cardiopulmonary failure. Trained as a literary scholar, Mr. Heymann began his career with "Ezra Pound, the Last Rower: A Political Profile," published in 1976; continued it...

Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell Edited by Thomas Travisano with Saskia Hamilton Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 875 pp., illustrated, $45 Here is all of it, all you wanted - and can take - of the epistolary "words in air" passed over a 30-year period (1947-77) between two of the most gifted poets in our last century's latter half. The task of assembling and editing them has been fulfilled in an exemplary manner by Thomas Travisano, author of an excellent critical study of Elizabeth Bishop, and Saskia Hamilton, who three years ago admirably edited Robert Lowell's...

The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch , Knopf, 761 pp., $40 In one of his best essays, poet John Ashbery remembers arriving in New York after his Harvard graduation in 1949 and visiting Kenneth Koch, who had graduated the year before. Koch lived on the third story of a building next to the El at Third Avenue where "one of Kenneth's distractions was to don a rubber gorilla mask and gaze out his window at the passing trains. " Anyone who has read a Koch poem can imagine what it was like to glance up from the humdrum ride and see that gorilla.

The literary prize season is in full swing, with three recent announcements honoring New England authors. Maine native Paul J. Fournier's "Tales from Misery Ridge: One Man's Adventures in the Great Outdoors" (Islandport) was named the best book of 2011 by the New England Outdoor Writers Association. Fournier (right) has been a bush pilot, Maine guide, and sporting camp owner. Drawing on experiences dating to the 1950s, he writes about rampaging black bears; "Moose Alley," the stretch of highway near Canada notorious for moose-car collisions; and the unsuccessful mission to re-introduce...

Conductor Susan Davenny Wyner programs concerts for the New England String Ensemble that welcome the newcomer and delight the connoisseur. She called the seasonal opener Sunday afternoon in Jordan Hall "Love Struck, Torn and Healed. " It began with a cheerful divertimento by the 16-year-old Mozart, full of high spirits but with a note of yearning in the slow movement. The work tells us that when Mozart came to create his adolescent Cherubino in "The Marriage of Figaro," he was remembering his younger self.