U.S. Consultant in Poetry, 1966-1968
James Dickey was born in Buckhead, Georgia, in 1923. He was the author of more than 25 poetry collections, including Into the Stone and Other Poems (1960); Helmets (1964); and Buckdancer’s Choice (1965), which won a National Book Award and a Melville Cane Award from the Poetry Society of America. He also published three novels and two volumes of essays and criticism. Dickey was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1966, a post that he held for two years. Among his honors were a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Order of the South Award. He held several teaching positions at Rice University and the University of Florida, and served as poet-in-residence and professor of English at the University of South Carolina. James Dickey died in 1997.
Audio Recordings of James Dickey
- As part of Poetry in English at the Library of Congress, James Dickey reading his poems in the Recording Laboratory, April 22, 1960
- James Dickey reading his poems with comment in the Coolidge Auditorium, Nov. 8, 1965
- James Dickey reading his poems with comment in the Coolidge Auditorium, Oct. 3, 1966
- Metaphor as pure adventure: a lecture by James Dickey in the Coolidge Auditorium, December 12, 1967
- James Dickey reading his poems with comment in the Coolidge Auditorium, May 6, 1968
- Consultants’ reunion readings by thirteen Consultants in Poetry in the Coolidge Auditorium, March 6, 1978