Against the Grain

Prolific poet and essayist, teacher, poetry consultant to the Library of Congress, Reed Whittemore began his literary life in the late 1930s when he and Yale roommate James Angleton founded the poetry magazineFuriosowhose pages saw the publication of Ezra Pound, Marianne Moore, and ee cummings, among others. This remarkable memoir chronicles the life and times of this self-considered "bourgeois anarchist," whose storied career included four wartime years in North Africa and Europe, as well as a second run ofFurioso, which Victor Navasky called "thene plus ultraof little mags." While teaching at Carleton College, Whittemore continued his pursuit of poetry, essays, reviews, and literary magazines, eventually becoming instrumental to the founding of the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines. In the mid-1960s, Whittemore and his family moved to Washington, where he became active in Artists of Conscience against the Vietnam War. He went on to serve as literary editor of theNew Republicuntil leaving to write a biography of William Carlos Williams and teach at the University of Maryland, all the while publishing the National Book Awardnominated poetry and essays that made his nameand even restartingDelos, a journal of world literature and translation.Against the Grainpresents the memorable and brilliant life of this twentieth-century original.Whittemore, Reed is the author of 'Against the Grain', published 2007 under ISBN 9781928755098 and ISBN 1928755097.