William Bronk
William Bronk was an influential American poet born in 1918 in Fort Edward, New York, who spent much of his life in Hudson Falls. He came from a long-established New England family and pursued his education at Dartmouth College, graduating in 1938, before briefly studying at Harvard. His military service during World War II, followed by a career managing his family's coal and lumber business, provided a backdrop to his literary pursuits. Bronk's poetry is characterized by its concise language and deep exploration of human existence and knowledge, often reflecting a humorous yet somber acknowledgment of the limits of understanding. He gained recognition within the literary community despite his aversion to academic circles, earning accolades such as the American Book Award in 1982 and the Lannan Literary Award in 1991. Bronk's connections with notable poets, facilitated by his mentor Sidney Cox, helped launch his career, with his first collection, "Light and Dark," published by Origin Press. His welcoming nature and culinary skills attracted fellow writers to Hudson Falls, where he became a respected figure in American poetry.
On this Page
Subject Terms
William Bronk
Nonfiction Writer and Poet
- Born: February 17, 1918
- Birthplace: Fort Edward, New York
- Died: February 22, 1999
- Place of death: Hudson Falls, New York
Biography
Like Emily Dickinson in the century before him, William Bronk created poetry based on the narrow world in which he lived. He was born in 1918 in Fort Edward, New York. The next year, his parents, William and Ethel (Funston) Bronk, moved the family to the large Victorian house in Hudson Falls, New York, where Bronk lived for most of the rest of his life. His family had long roots in New England, and Bronk’s branch had been in upstate New York since the mid- 1600’s.
Bronk attended public schools and Dartmouth College; he was graduated in 1938 and spent a semester in graduate English studies at Harvard before deciding not to continue his scholarship, which he felt seemed to deny the very art it investigated. He entered the army in 1941 and was discharged in 1945 as a first lieutenant. He taught for a year at Union College in Schenectady, New York, and then returned to Hudson Falls to manage his father’s coal and lumber business. He retired from the business in 1978.
Bronk’s years at Dartmouth had introduced him to an exceptional teacher, Sidney Cox, who fostered his interest in poetry and introduced him to other writers, including Robert Frost. Another of Cox’s students was the poet Samuel French Morse, whose admiration for Bronk’s early work led to a network of friends and publications that extended through his life. Morse recommended Bronk’s poems to the poet Robert Creely who, in the early 1950’s, briefly planned to publish a journal. When that fell through, Creely gave the poems to the poet Cid Corman, editor of Origin, an influential literary journal of the 1950’s and 1960’s. The Origin Press published Bronk’s first book, Light and Dark, which in turn led to attention from other publishers and editors. Bronk won the American Book Award for poetry in 1982 and the Lannan Literary award in 1991.
Although Bronk rejected academic literary circles, rarely traveled (he had no driver’s license) and seldom gave readings, his extensive publication and the high quality of his work earned him many literary friendships and high regard from serious students of American poetry. In his later life, writers often made pilgrimages to Hudson Falls, where Bronk had a reputation as a welcoming host and gourmet cook.
Bronk’s poetry is marked by its spare but beautiful language and by Bronk’s lifelong interest in using poetry to examine the odd place of human beings in a world they can scarcely begin to perceive. Although Bronk’s focus on the limitations of knowledge offers a somber view of the world, his poems are also often funny in their wry assertion of how little humans can know, as when the writer defines ultimate reality as his own zip code—that is, his own mind, and by extension, each person’s mind, which is the individual’s way of knowing.