Karl Shapiro

Karl Shapiro was born in Baltimore, Maryland on November 10, 1913 (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 68). He attended the University of Virginia for a while, but eventually dropped out so that he could concentrate on his writing. Eventually he resumed his education at Johns Hopkins University, but his studies were interrupted when World War II broke out and he was drafted into the army. While overseas, he continued to write poems, which he periodically sent home to his fianc©, Evelyn Katz. Evelyn published many of his poems, and by the time that Shapiro returned home he was already very well known as an excellent poet. In fact, his anthology V-Letter and Other Poems, published in 1944, won a Pulitzer Prize (Karl Shapiro (1913-2000)). Shapiro married Evelyn in 1945 (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 69), and for a couple of years he worked as a publisher at Poetry magazine (Karl Shapiro). He also worked as a professor at the University of Nebraska and an editor at Prairie Schooner from 1956 to 1966 (Karl Shapiro). In 1968, he moved to California and taught at the University of California at Davis until he retired in 1984 (Ellmann, O'Clair, and Ramazani 69). Eventually he moved to New York, and died in New York City on May 14, 2000 (Karl Shapiro). Shapiro was awarded with many prestigious honors over his lifetime, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and instatement to the position of Poetry Consultant at the Library of Congress.

Shapiro's poem "Manhole Covers" is written in free verse. This poem has two themes; the first is that beauty can be found anywhere, even in the most unusual of places, and the second is that modern civilization is tied both to the past and the future. Shapiro compares manhole covers to things of the past, such as "medals struck by a great savage kahn" (line 2) and "Mayan calendar stones" (line 3). However, Shapiro also reminds his readers that even after humans are long gone, some of the things that we have created will still remain "in the grave of the iron-old world" (line 11).

Bibliography

Poem:

Karl, Shapiro. "Manhole Covers." The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 2. Eds. Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. 71. Print.

Biography:

Ellmann, Richard, Robert O'Clair, and Jahan Ramazani. The Norton Antholody of Modern and Contemporary Poetry. Volume 2. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc, 2003. Print.

"Karl Shapiro." Poets.org. Academy of American Poets, n.d. Web. Feb 15 2011. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/735.

"Karl Shapiro (1913-2000)." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 2010. Web. Feb 15 2011. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/karl-shapiro.