Louis Untermeyer

• Born: October 1, 1885
• Birthplace: New York, New York
• Died: December 18, 1977
• Place of death: Newtown, Connecticut

Poet, scholar, and writer

Poet, author, translator, and editor of more than one hundred anthologies, Untermeyer was cofounder of The Seven Arts, the magazine that introduced Robert Frost to the public.

Early Life

Louis Untermeyer (UHN-tur-mi-ur) was born in New York City on October 1, 1885. His father was an owner of Untermeyer-Robbins, a jewelry-manufacturing company. In 1902, Untermeyer quit school to work in sales for his father’s company. Still, Untermeyer found time to write and collect poetry, to read and study, and to begin corresponding and associating with poets, entertainers, and authors. Some of his correspondents include Robert Frost and Carl Sandburg.

In 1907, Untermeyer married Jean Starr; their son, Richard, was born the same year. In 1911, Untermeyer published First Love, his first book of poetry. Untermeyer believed World War I resulted from the imperialist competitive system; he advocated neutrality for the United States in the leftist periodical The New Masses, which was published from 1911 to 1917. After the journal lost its mailing privileges and after investigations of certain articles suggested violations of the Espionage Act, the publication ceased.

Untermeyer was cofounder of the poetry magazine The Seven Arts (1916-1917). The journal introduced many poets, including Frost, to readers. Frost became Untermeyer’s lifetime friend and correspondent. In 1918, Untermeyer began writing periodically for The Liberator, published by the Workers Party of America. Later he wrote for The New Masses, an independent socialist magazine. By 1923 Untermeyer had developed six poetry anthologies, including Modern American Poetry (1919), Modern British Poetry (1920), and This Singing World (1923). He resigned as vice president of Untermeyer-Robbins to concentrate on writing, lecturing on poetry and the arts, translating books, and performing other scholarly activities.

Life’s Work

Untermeyer’s home life was turbulent. After a 1926 divorce from Starr, he married poet Virginia Moore the same year. When they divorced in 1927, Moore renamed their son, John Moore Untermeyer, after her father, John Fitzallen Moore. Starr and Unterneyer remarried the same year. They adopted two sons—Laurence and Joseph—before their 1933 divorce. Untermeyer married Esther Antin in 1933.

Untermeyer continued to write, to correspond, and to compile poetry collections despite his personal problems. His Selected Poems and Parodies (1935) featured his own work. In 1939, he was appointed poet in residence at the University of Michigan. He later served in similar posts at the University of Kansas City and Iowa State College. When Untermeyer’s marriage to Antin ended in divorce in 1948, he immediately married writer and poet Bryna Ivens. Their marriage and their professional relationship would last until Untermeyer’s death from old age at ninety-two.

Untermeyer was a regular panelist in 1950 on the What’s My Line? television program. As a result of the investigations of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) into his leftist activities and writings, Untermeyer was fired from television and blacklisted from further work. Playwright Arthur Miller noted Untermeyer’s concern about the ordeal; Untermeyer became reclusive for more than a year.

Ivens and Untermeyer created a number of books in the 1960’s, including The Golden Treasury of Children’s Literature (1966). His lectures on literature and the arts took him to India and to Japan. Untermeyer was consultant in English poetry for the Library of Congress (1961-1963). During his lifetime, he developed numerous friendships with literary individuals who sought his help in getting published, who contributed to his anthologies, or who shared his enthusiasm for poetry.

The anthologies of poetry that Untermeyer compiled and edited are his best-known contributions to literature. These collections have sold more than a million copies; often these amplified editions continue to be a student’s first contact with poetry and serve as references for high school and college literature classes.

Significance

Untermeyer was a poet, a writer, an editor, a translator, and a lecturer. His writings include collections, parodies, short stories, essays, a travel journal, juvenile poetry, juvenile fiction, a novel, biographies, autobiographies, and literary translations. He cofounded the magazine The Seven Arts, which introduced Frost to readers. After being blacklisted from television, Untermeyer feared for the freedom of speech. He became a recluse for more than a year.

Though best noted for his six poetry anthologies and his own books of poetry, Untermeyer translated, wrote, or edited more than one hundred books for all ages. His correspondence with such literary icons as Frost, Ezra Pound, Sinclair Lewis, and Sandburg and such editors and directors as Walter Lippmann and John Huston remains in his materials at the University of Delaware.

Bibliography

Frost, Robert, and Louis Untermeyer. Robert Frost’s Poems. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. As cofounder of The Seven Arts poetry magazine, Untermeyer had introduced Frost to readers. Untermeyer’s first collection of Frost’s poems dates from the 1940’s; through the years he published analyses of Frost’s works.

Untermeyer, Louis. Bygones: The Recollections of Louis Untermeyer. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1965. Untermeyer published this autobiography when he was eighty years old. It superseded his 1939 autobiography, From Another World: The Autobiography of Louis Untermeyer.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Modern British Poetry. 1920. Reprint. St. Andrew, Jamaica: Book Jungle, 2008. This reprint of Untermeyer’s second anthology demonstrates the continued demand for it after more than eight decades.