The Younger Son

by Karl Shapiro

With some illustrations.

2 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Pulitzer Prize-winning American poet, appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.

Reviews

[Randy Rhody]

Read this for some personal research. This volume ends before his Pulitzer award in 1945. Part 1 details his development as a poet, but the more interesting is part 2, of his experience as a clerical soldier in World War II South Pacific while his work began to be published. Surprisingly well written despite referring to himself throughout as "the poet" versus the first-person "I." What I mean by well-written is that he is known as a poet more than a prose writer, and his impressions of a much-traveled war topic are engaging and readable. Met Shapiro when I was a teenager, once to interview him at his house for a school project and a second time when he and Allen Ginsberg came to a party at my shabby student apartment.