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David Shapiro (poet)

David Shapiro (January 2, 1947 – May 4, 2024) was an American poet, literary critic, and art historian. He wrote some twenty volumes of poetry, literary, and art criticism. He was first published at the age of thirteen, and his first book was published when he was eighteen.

Education and teaching

Václav Havel, Shirley Temple Black, David Shapiro and John Hejduk,
Prague, 3 September 1991
Memorial plaque in Prague with the Shapiro's poem "The Funeral of Jan Palach"

Shapiro was born in Newark, New Jersey,[1] into a musical family. His maternal grandfather, Berele Chagy, was a distinguished cantor.[2] Shapiro's family played string quartets together; the family quartet performed on Voice of America when Shapiro, a violinist, was 5.[3]

Shapiro grew up in Newark and attended its Weequahic High School before matriculating (after deferring the early admission secured by mentor Kenneth Koch for a year and a half to focus on his musical and literary projects) at nearby Columbia University, from which he received a B.A. (1968) and Ph.D. (1973) in English. Already a musician of professional competence as a youth, from 1963 he was a violinist with the New Jersey Symphony and the American Symphony, among others.[4]

From 1968 to 1970, he completed a second undergraduate degree on Columbia's Kellett Fellowship at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he ultimately held the Oxbridge M.A. with honors.[5] Between 1972 and 1981, Shapiro stayed on at Columbia as an instructor and assistant professor of English, also serving as a visiting professor at Brooklyn College (1979). From 1980[6] or 1981[7] until his retirement in 2017, he was primarily affiliated with William Paterson University; there, he was the William Paterson Professor of Art History, Emeritus at the time of his death, having been initially hired as an associate professor in the discipline. In addition, he maintained his ties to the literary community by serving as a writer-in-residence and adjunct professor at Cooper Union for many years. During the 1982-83 academic year, he held a visiting appointment at Princeton University.

Shapiro achieved brief notoriety during the 1968 student uprising at Columbia, when he was photographed sitting behind the desk of President Grayson L. Kirk wearing dark glasses and smoking a cigar; Shapiro later described the cigar as "horrible".[8][9] Notably (and in contrast to other protesters), his ensuing suspension did not affect his academic standing or subsequent receipt of one of Columbia College's most selective fellowships, although Shapiro never commented publicly on his treatment by University officials.

Works

Shapiro's writing includes a monograph on John Ashbery, a book on Jim Dine’s paintings, a book on Piet Mondrian’s flower studies, and a book on Jasper Johns’ drawings. He translated Rafael Alberti’s poems on Pablo Picasso, and the writings of the Sonia and Robert Delaunay.

His sonnets on the death of Socrates are the basis for Unwritten, a song cycle by Mohammed Fairouz.[10]

Personal life and death

Shapiro lived in Riverdale, The Bronx, New York City, with his wife and son.[5] He died of complications from Parkinson’s Disease in New York City on May 4, 2024, at the age of 77.[2][11]

List of works

References

  1. ^ Klin, Richard. "David's Harp", January Magazine, July 2007. Accessed September 22, 2008. "Newark-raised, Shapiro has not shied away from his Garden State roots, (Poems from Deal, its title taken from a Jersey-shore town, came out in 1969) taking his place, along with Ginsberg and Williams, as bards of this much maligned state."
  2. ^ a b Langer, Emily (May 8, 2024). "David Shapiro, poet and unwitting icon of '68 campus protest, dies at 77". Washington Post. Retrieved May 8, 2024.
  3. ^ Williams, Alex (May 10, 2024). "David Shapiro, Who Gained Fame in Poetry and Protest, Dies at 77". The New York Times. Retrieved 20 May 2024.
  4. ^ "Shapiro, David (Joel)". Encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 20 August 2022.
  5. ^ a b Parhizkar, Maryam. "David Shapiro ’68: Four Decades of Poems" Archived 2008-03-27 at the Wayback Machine, Columbia College Today, May/June 2007. Accessed May 4, 2008.
  6. ^ https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/culture-magazines/shapiro-david-joel-0
  7. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/obituaries/2024/05/08/david-shapiro-columbia-protests-dead/
  8. ^ Staff. "Columbia Offers Laurels to a Band of Poets", The New York Times, September 23, 1990. Accessed September 22, 2008. "In the widely circulated photo, a young Mr. Shapiro - not yet a professor - is in the student-occupied office of the university President, Grayson Kirk. Wearing a pair of sunglasses, he is sitting comfortably on President Kirk's chair with his feet up, puffing away on one of the president's cigars. That cigar was horrible, Professor Shapiro told the dinner guests."
  9. ^ Morrow, Lance. "Lance Morrow: Why the flag is not a burning issue", CNN, March 29, 2000. Accessed September 22, 2000. "For one thing, flag burning (even though it occurs rarely) originated as one of the vivid, button-pushing ur-outrages committed during the great '60s deconstruction of American authority (which some boomers consider to be the beginning of the world) and engraved on the national memory by photographs of the time – merging with black-and-white shots of an Abbie Hoffman type giving the finger to "Amerika," or of the student radical Mark Rudd smirking and smoking a cigar with his feet up on the desk of the president of Columbia University."
  10. ^ Fischer, Shell (March 1, 2011), Poets, Composers Find Sanctuary, Poets & Writers, retrieved 2011-04-19
  11. ^ "In Memoriam: David Shapiro (1947–2024)". Penn Sound. 6 May 2024. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  12. ^ "In Memory of an Angel". City Lights Publishing. City Lights. Retrieved 20 September 2016.
  13. ^ "A Man Without a Book". Literature Without Borders (Latvia). Retrieved 5 June 2018.

Sources

Further reading

External links

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