Hayden Carruth: A Listener's Guide

by Hayden Carruth

This new seventy-minute recording features Hayden Carruth reading thirty poems from his Collected Shorter Poems, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award, and Scrambled Eggs & Whiskey, which won the National Book Award. The selection spans, in roughly chronological order, his celebrated career of more than fifty years. To hear Carruth give voice to poems suchg as "The Cows at Night," "Marvin McCabe," and "Regarding Chainsaws" is a rare gift.In addition to the National Book Award Hayden Carruth has been awarded a National Book Critics Circle Award, a 1995 Lannan Literary Award, the Shelley Memorial Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the NEA, among many other honors. The author of dozens of books of poetry and prose, he is a former editor of Poetry and former poetry editor for Harper's. He lives in Munnsville, New York.

Genres: Poetry

32 pages, Audio CD

First published March 1, 2000

About the author

Hayden Carruth was an American poet, literary critic, and anthologist known for his distinctive voice, blending formal precision with the rhythms of jazz and the blues. Over a career spanning more than sixty years, he published over thirty books of poetry, as well as essays, literary criticism, and anthologies. His work often explored themes of rural life, hardship, mental illness, and social justice, reflecting both his personal struggles and his political convictions.
Born in Waterbury, Connecticut, Carruth studied at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and later earned an M.A. from the University of Chicago. His early career included serving as editor-in-chief of Poetry and as an advisory editor of The Hudson Review for two decades. He later became poetry editor at Harper’s Magazine and held teaching positions at Johnson State College, the University of Vermont, and Syracuse University, where he influenced a new generation of poets.
Carruth received numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Collected Shorter Poems (1992) and the National Book Award for Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey (1996). His later works, such as Doctor Jazz and Last Poems, further cemented his reputation as a major voice in American poetry. His influential anthology The Voice That Is Great Within Us remains a landmark collection of American verse.