Hard Prayer

by Galway Kinnell

A collection of Galway Kinnell reading his own poetry. Selections include "The River That Is East," "The Avenue Bearing the Initial of Christ into the New World" (sections 6, 7, 9, 11 & 14), "Another Night in the Ruins," "The Porcupine," "The Bear," "The Still Time," "Memories of My Father" (section 7), "First Day of the Future," "The Tragedy of Bricks," "Farewell," "When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone," and "The Seekonk Woods." 63 minutes total recording time. Recorded at various times and locations from 1961 through 1991. Originally published in 1991. Re-issued on audio CD in 2007. Product No. C23669D.

Audio CD

Published August 15, 2007

About the author

Kinnell studied at Princeton University, graduating in 1948. He later obtained a Master's degree from the University of Rochester.

As a young man, Kinnell served in the US Navy and traveled extensively in Europe and the Middle East. His first volume of poetry, What a Kingdom It Was, was published in 1960.

Kinnell became very involved in the U.S. civil rights movement upon his return, joining CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) as a field worker and participating in a number of marches and other civil actions.

Kinnell was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award for Selected Poems (1980), a MacArthur Fellowship, a Rockefeller Grant, the 1974 Shelley Prize of the Poetry Society of America, and the 1975 Medal of Merit from National Institute of Arts and Letters. He served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2001 to 2007.