Galway Kinnell (1927–2014) was an award-winning poet known for work that connects ordinary life to the large and unseen forces of God and nature. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he is celebrated for several collections of poetry, including What a Kingdom It Was, Flower Herding on Mount Monadnock, and Body Rags. Other well-known works include The Book of Nightmares and Selected Poems, for which Kinnell won the Pulitzer Prize and for which he was cowinner of the National Book Award in 1983.

The Correspondence-School Instructor Says Goodbye to His Poetry Students

by Galway Kinnell

Goodbye, lady in Bangor, who sent me
snapshots of yourself, after definitely hinting
you were beautiful; goodbye,
Miami Beach urologist, who enclosed plain
brown envelopes for the return of your very
“Clinical Sonnets”; goodbye, manufacturer
of brassieres on the Coast, whose eclogues
give the fullest treatment in literature yet
to the sagging breast motif; goodbye, you in San Quentin,
who wrote, “Being German my hero is Hitler,”
instead of “Sincerely yours,” at the end of long,
neat-scripted letters extolling the Pre-Raphaelites:

People on couch
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