'An itch that MUST be scratched'

 

“I've been to a lot of places anddone a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can'tdo without.” – Robert Penn Warren

 

Born in Kentucky on thisdate in 1905, Penn Warren had the remarkable ability to put his reader bothinto a place and inside the lives of those about whom he was writing, whetherit was in works of fiction or in his remarkable poetry.

 

Founder of the influential literaryjournal The Southern Review, he is the only person to win thePulitzer Prize for both fiction and poetry, winning the latter awardtwice.  His first Pulitzer came for All The King’s Men,the 1947 novel about ruthless Louisiana politician WillieStark.  It’s one of the few books to also be made into both a movieand an opera, with the movie version earning a Best Picture and BestActor (Broderick Crawford) Academy Awards.

 

Penn Warren’s Pulitzers for poetry wereawarded for Promises: Poems 1954-1956, which also won the NationalBook Award, and Now and Then.  In 1986 he was named America’sfirst. Poet Laureate.  Among his many other honors were ThePresidential Medal of Freedom and The National Medal of Arts. 

 

 “How do poems grow?” PennWarren wrote.  “They grow out of your life.   The urgeto write poetry is like having an itch.  When the itch becomesannoying enough, you scratch it.”