Poet Karl Shapiro
Profiled in Yank

In 1944, Karl Jay Shapiro (1913 – 2000) was pulling in the big-bucks as a U.S. Army private stationed in New Guinea, but unlike most of the khaki-clad Joes in at least a one hundred mile radius, Shapiro had two volumes of poetry under his belt (Person Place and Thing and Place of Love) in addition to the memory of having been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. In this short interview, he explains what a poet’s concerns should be and offers some fine tips for younger poets to bare in mind. A year latter, while he was still in uniform, Shapiro would be awarded the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for poetry.