Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Chelsea Taylor

Mrs. Bosch

4 April 2007

English 10 Honors

The Biography of a Prodigy

When, a dozen years ago, Congress authorized the appointment of the nation's first poet laureate, Robert

Penn Warren was named. Though nearly 80 at the time and “cancer-stricken, with all his work behind him, he

had long been considered the dean of American letters -- indeed, the very embodiment of the restless, ravening

American imagination” (The Fugitive). Robert Penn Warren was “an American poet, novelist, and literary

critic,” (Robert Penn Warren) and one of the greatest minds of his time. Not only did he live a very fulfilling life,

but was also well known throughout his time as a very distinguished person, and consequently received “much

recognition for his works;” (Life of Robert Penn Warren) many of which won him esteemed awards. Robert

Penn Warren, a brilliant American poet, contained such a variety of depth in his literary works, that that it is no

enigma how a mere being could receive so much praise and approval.

Warren was “born in Guthrie, Todd County, Kentucky on April 24, 1905,” (Robert Penn Warren) was

a prodigy from the start, and was deceased September 15, 1989. He entered Vanderbilt University in 1921 at

age 16, “where he became the youngest member of the group of Southern poets called the Fugitives, which

included John Crowe Ransom, Allen Tate, Donald Davidson, and Merrill Moore” (Life of Robert Penn

Warren). Another aspect of his awe-inspiring life was his range in talents. Warren's “range in his works was

extraordinary” (The Fugitive). He is the only writer “to have won a Pulitzer Prize both for fiction and (twice) for

poetry” (The Fugitive). He was also a passionate advocate “of the rural Southern agrarian tradition” (Robert

Penn Warren). His life could nearly be considered a fable of literary success. His 18 volumes of poetry “early on

displayed an eloquence later supplanted by a rugged sublimity that rightly earned him comparisons with Hardy

and Yeats” (The Fugitive).

One of his most heartfelt pieces of poetry is titled True Love. In it are insightful examples of imagery,

literary devices, sound devices, and a flow that creates a visually moving image, from one scene to the next. An

excerpt that proves this point beautifully is as follows:

In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
 A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
 In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart. It
 Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath.
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?
Two years later she smiled at me. She
Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew.

As the imagery flows through the chosen words and one begins to consider why he used those particular

words, one realizes that this is the work of a true genius; it is a real masterpiece. To evoke such deep thought

from a few stanzas of a poem is purely magical. To contain such depth and broad range of talent, all condensed

into one simple piece of literary work, is what a true master of literature is capable of achieving. It is what Robert

Penn Warren was capable of achieving, and was very apt at consistently achieving throughout his literary career.


What is most striking about this famed poet and novelist however, is the knowledge that he had rather not

attended Vanderbilt at all. Astonishingly, he desired to attend Annapolis and “become commander of the Pacific

fleet. In fact, he was accepted by the Naval Academy, but that summer his younger brother aimlessly tossed a

stone over a hedge. It landed in Warren's eye, and so damaged his sight that he couldn't enroll at Annapolis.

(The eye was later removed)” (The Fugitive). To realize that this remarkable American prodigy had not desired

to become a poet or novelist at all, and then to compare his works of art to those who had built their whole lives

around becoming an esteemed poet, it was purely fate that he could have turned out as so, so that these amazing

works of art could flow from his mind, with such broad depth as was included, that he received many precious

awards that some would regard as the highest level of recognition achievable.

Another eloquent example of the included depth in Warren’s literature is from one of his more thought-evoking

works, Tell Me A Story:

Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart.

It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.

The sound was passing northward.

Tell me a story.

In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

Just the arrangement of the words included in this poem is enough to rouse such deep and meaningful

thoughts as those of the ones he included into his work. Throughout Robert Warren’s amazing life, he created a

legacy that is very hard to live up to. Not only did he compose beautifully crafted works of art, through his

poetry, prose, and letters, but he also received much recognition for them, and was also compared with the likes

of Hardy and Yeats; a huge accomplishment on it’s own. Without his perseverance, determination, and sheer

depth inserted into his works, one could never have experienced such enlightenment when examining a work of

literature as one can while reviewing Robert Penn Warren’s amazingly gifted talents inserted into his works of art.





Work Cited

The Fugitive. 9 March 1997. The New York Times. 10 April 2007.
<http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/09/reviews/970309.09mcclact.html>.

Tell Me A Story. 8 October 1995. Poetry Critics. 10 April 2007.
<http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15315>.

Robert Penn Warren. 12 February 2006. Wikipedia. 10 April 2007.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Penn_Warren>.

Life of Robert Penn Warren. 6 June 1999. Poetry Critics. 10 April 2007.
<http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/17>.

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