X. J. Kennedy Biography
X. J. Kennedy (born 21 August 1929, Dover, New Jersey, USA as Joseph Charles Kennedy) is a poet, translator, anthologist, editor, and writer of children's literature and student textbooks on English literature and poetry.
Beginnings and academic career
In his youth, under the name Joe Kennedy, Kennedy was an active member of science fiction fandom and published a number of well-regarded fanzines, including
Vampire (a quarterly, 1945–47) and the
Vampire Annuals. He was a member of several amateur press associations, and co-founded the still-extant Spectator Amateur Press Association (SAPS). During this period he began by writing fiction, particularly science fiction, and sold some SF to the pulps.
Kennedy attended Seton Hall (BSc, 1950) and Columbia University (MA, 1951). After serving for four years as an enlisted journalist with the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet, he studied at the Sorbonne from 1955 to 56, and spent the next six years pursuing a graduate degree in English at the University of Michigan, but did not complete his Ph.D. He met his future wife Dorothy Mintzlaff while there; she received her Master's degree in English from the University of Michigan in 1956 and completed coursework there toward her doctorate.
Kennedy taught English at the University of Michigan, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Tufts University (1963–78), with visiting professorships at Wellesley, UC-Irvine, and Leeds.
Writing career
In the early 1970s Kennedy and his wife Dorothy co-edited the influential journal,
Counter/Measures, a precursor in the New Formalist movement to
The Reaper and
The Formalist. He served as poetry editor of
The Paris Review, and his poetry has been published in
The New Yorker,
Poetry, and
The Hudson Review. Kennedy became a freelance writer in 1978.
Kennedy is most recognized for his light verse, and was the first recipient of the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Michael Braude Award for Light Verse. His first book,
Nude Descending a Staircase, won the 1961 Lamont Poetry Prize of the Academy of American Poets, and his dozens of books have won awards and honors including Guggenheim and National Arts Council fellowships, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Bess Hokin Prize from
Poetry magazine, and a Los Angeles Times Book Award for poetry (in 1985 for
Cross Ties: Selected Poems), the 1969/70 Shelley Memorial Award, the Golden Rose of the New England Poetry Club, honorary degrees from Lawrence and Adelphi Universities and Westfield State College. Kennedy received the National Council of Teachers of English Year 2000 Award for Excellence in Children's Poetry. He received the 2004 Poets' Prize for his most recent work,
The Lords of Misrule: Poems 1992-2002.
Kennedy also wrote a series of dark children's poetry books ("Brats" ), translated Aristophanes'
Lysistrata, and
Tygers of Wrath into English, and wrote an anthology of angry verse. With his wife Dorothy M. Kennedy and scholar Jane E. Aaron he is the editor of
The Bedford Reader, a collegiate literature textbook also used for teaching to the AP English Language and Composition test.
X. J. Kennedy and his wife Dorothy have five children and six grandchildren and live in Lexington, Massachusetts.
Name
Kennedy was born Joseph Charles Kennedy, and was long known as Joe Kennedy; but, not wishing to share a name with Joseph P. Kennedy, he later added an "X" as his first initial.
