Daryl Hine
Daryl Hine was a Canadian poet and academic, born on February 24, 1936, in British Columbia. He had a challenging upbringing, feeling isolated in his early years, but found meaning through his study of Latin. Hine pursued higher education at McGill University, where he earned a B.A. in classics and published two poetry collections. After spending several years in Europe, particularly France and Poland, he returned to the U.S. and earned advanced degrees in comparative literature from the University of Chicago. Hine served as the editor of Poetry magazine for a decade and contributed significantly to the field of poetry, moving beyond traditional forms while maintaining a focus on word relationships. His works often addressed themes of homosexuality, contributing to the representation of homosexual poetry in mainstream literature. Throughout his career, Hine received numerous accolades, including fellowships and awards, recognizing his impact on contemporary poetry and literature.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Daryl Hine
Writer
- Born: February 24, 1936
- Birthplace: Burnaby (or New Westminster), British Columbia, Canada
- Died: August 20, 2012
Biography
Born in New Westminster (some sources say Burnaby), British Columbia, Canada, on February 24, 1936, Daryl Hine was the son of Robert Fraser Hine and Elsie James Hine. Throughout his early years, Hine felt he had few friends, as he later described in In and Out: A Confessional Poem. Only when he discovered Latin did he find life meaningful. Hine later expanded on his confessional poem in Academic Festival Overtures, a twelve-part antiepic in which he particularly recalls discoveries and experiences of his thirteenth year. After realizing that he was homosexual, he recalls how painful it was to grow up during the 1940’s and 1950’s.
Hine entered McGill University in 1954, where he received his B.A. degree in classics in 1958. While he was a student there, he published two collections of poetry, Five Poems and The Carnal and the Crane. Following his graduation, Hine traveled to Europe, where he lived for four years, the majority of the time in France. During his third year abroad, he went to Poland, where he edited English subtitles for a Polish film. Out of this experience came a nonfiction work, Polish Subtitles: Impressions from a Journey, and a volume of poetry, The Devil’s Picture Book, which features intricate rhyme and allusiveness. Also during this period, Hine published his only novel, The Prince of Darkness and Co., which one critic considered to be a virtual biography of the poet Robert Graves.
When he returned to the United States in 1962, Hine became a freelance poetry editor in New York for a time before beginning graduate work at the University of Chicago. He earned both his M.A. in1965 and his Ph.D. degree in 1967 in comparative literature from that university. The following year he had the good fortune of becoming the editor of Poetry magazine, a position he held for ten years before turning to university teaching, principally at the University of Chicago.
By the mid-1960’s, his poetry increasingly strayed from strict adherence to pre-Romantic poetic forms. The looseness of his form, however, does not hide his witty formalism. A critic who reviewed Hine’s Daylight Saving: Poems noted that the poet focused on relationships among words rather than on feelings.
In addition to his poetry, Hine also wrote a play, The Death of Seneca, which was produced in Chicago, and two plays for radio, A Mutual Flame and Alcestis. He also has published English translations of classical literature, including the work of Ovid, Homer, and Hesiod. Since 1975, he has dealt with his homosexuality more explicitly. His work, along with the writing of several of his contemporaries, has carved out a place for serious homosexual poetry in mainstream American poetry.
Over a span of more than thirty years, Hine has received several honors and awards. He obtained a Canada Foundation-Rockefeller Fellowship in 1958, Canada Council grants in 1959 and 1979, and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1980. He is a three-time winner of the Ingram Merrill Award, and during the 1980’s he was honored with the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award and the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.