A Louis Zukofsky Chronology (1904-1978)
Thanks to
Mark Scroggins for help with the following (see appended note below).
1904
January 23: LZ born on the Lower East Side of
Manhattan, NYC; the youngest child of Pinchos (c.1860-1950) and Chana Pruss
(c.1962-1927), married 1887, Yiddish speaking immigrants from Lithuania (now
Belarus), then part of Russia. Pinchos immigrated alone in 1898 and then
brought the rest of his family in 1903. LZ was the only child born in the US,
and there were five older siblings: two died in infancy, two sisters, Dora
(1888-1913) and Fanny (1890-1972), and a brother, Morris Ephraim (1892-1966).
LZ was born and grew up at 97 Chrystie Street, a block east of the Bowery.
Around 1914 the family would move uptown to 57 E. 111th Street, where LZ lived
more or less through the 1920s.
1913
January 21: Celia Thaew born in NYC.
1916
June: LZ graduates from primary school.
1920
January: LZ graduates from Stuyvesant High
School, which specializes in math and science, then located on East 15th
Street.
Enrolls in Columbia University. Among LZ’s classmates, several of whom
would remain life-long friends, were Irving Kaplan, Whittaker Chambers, Samuel
Theodore Hecht, John Waldhorn Gassner, Clifton Fadiman, Meyer Shapiro, Mortimer
J. Adler and Lionel Trilling.
November: First poetic publications in Columbia
student journals and will continue to publish frequently during his university
years.
1924
June: Graduates from Columbia with an M.A. in
English, thesis on Henry Adams.
1927
January 29: Death of LZ’s mother (mentioned in “A”-5, -6 and Arise, arise).
October: Works for the National Industrial
Conference Board, NYC (until March 1928).
1928
Spring: “Poem beginning ‘The’” (written 1926)
published by Ezra Pound in The Exile.
April 1: LZ first meets William Carlos Williams
at Pound’s instigation.
April 5: LZ attends performance of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion at Carnegie Hall,
which becomes the setting for “A”-1
written the same year.
Composes “A”-1
and -2.
1929
Meets Jerry Reisman (1913-2000), one of his
students when teaching part-time at Stuyvesant High School. They will remain
close friends until 1947, collaborating on various literary works, although
Reisman’s primary interests are in science and engineering, which will have
their impact on LZ’s work as well.
Summer: Composes “A”-3 and -4.
September: Finishes “A”-5.
1930
Throughout the 1930s up until his marriage in
1939, LZ lived in many short-term apartments mostly in Brooklyn and lower
Manhattan, but also in the Bronx and Queens.
July: meets Basil Bunting when the latter is in
NYC during the latter half of the year.
July-September: Travels west via the Mid-West
and Nevada to spend part of summer in Berkeley with Columbia classmate Irving
Kaplan (details appear in “A”-6.32-35).
In August while staying with Kaplan will compose “A”-6 and -7.
September: Instructor in English and Comparative
Literature at University of Wisconsin, Madison (until May 1931).
1931
February: Publication of the “Objectivists”
issue of Poetry edited by LZ. In response
to the “Objectivists” issue, Lorine Niedecker begins correspondence with LZ.
August 19: LZ gives talk at the Gotham Book
Mart, NYC, “‘Recencies’ in Poetry,” which will become introduction to An “Objectivists” Anthology (1932).
September: LZ draws a stipend as editor of To
Publishers, owned and paid for by George Oppen (until Aug. 1932).
1932
An
“Objectivists” Anthology
edited by LZ published by To, Publishers based in France.
April 21-June 21: Trip West with Jerry Reisman
via Arizona and Mexico to San Francisco where he stays with Irving Kaplan.
1933
June 30-September 15: Trip to Europe. Spends a
week in Normandy and Brittany with René Taupin. In Paris in July where he meets
Fernand Léger, Constantin Brancusi, Hilaire Hiler and Walter Lowenfels. Arrives
in Budapest 7 August where he sees Tibor Serly. Visits Pound and Bunting in
Rapallo, Italy in August for two and a half weeks, where he meets James
Laughlin.
Late in the year Niedecker visits LZ in NYC.
1934
January: Works for Works Projects Administration
(WPA), Columbia University projects until March 1935.
Meets Celia Thaew (1913-1980) while working for
WPA (Thaew is pronounced Tave, Scroggins Bio
142).
Le
Style Apollinaire,
written in collaboration with and translated by René Taupin, is published in
Paris.
1935
March: Works for WPA, WNYC Radio (until Jan.
1936).
August: Begins “A”-8 (finished July 1937).
1936
January: Works for WPA, Federal Arts project, Index of American Design (until July
1939; research essays dated August 27, 1938 to April 28, 1939).
June: Finishes Arise, arise.
September: Visits Niedecker at Black Hawk
Island, Wisconsin with Jerry Reisman.
1938
August: Begins first half of “A”-9 (finished April 1940).
October 24: Gives 15 minute reading on WQXR
radio, NYC.
1939
August 20: LZ and CZ marry in Wilmington,
Delaware.
September: Works for WPA, NYC Arts project, WNYC
Radio scripts (until Jan. 1941; radio scripts dated November 16, 1939 to April
4, 1940).
September 15: Zukofskys move to 1088 East 180th
Street, Bronx, NYC (until end of June 1942; details described in “It Was”).
1940
June-July: Composes “A”-10.
November: First
Half of “A”-9 privately published.
1941
January-February: Editor with René Taupin of La France en Liberté, a journal of free
French writing that never materialized.
March: Final period of work for WPA, NYC Arts
Project (until April 1942).
October: 55
Poems published by James A. Decker (Prairie City, Illinois).
1942
Summer: At Diamond Point, Lake George, NY where
LZ revises first seven movements of “A”.
October 1: Zukofskys move to 202 Columbia
Heights, Brooklyn (until Sept. 1, 1944).
November: LZ does substitute teaching in NYC
high schools (until June 1943).
1943
June: LZ works for Hazeltine Electronics Corp.,
Little Neck, Queens, NY editing instruction manuals (until Oct.
1944).
October 22: PZ born.
1944
Zukofskys living at 163rd Street,
Flushing, NY.
October: LZ works for Jordanoff Aviation Corp.,
editing instruction manuals, which involves periods in Cambridge, Mass. and
Towson/Baltimore, Maryland (until March 1946).
1946
May 1: Zukofskys move to 30 Willow Street,
Brooklyn (until June 1957).
March: Anew
published by James A. Decker (Prairie City, Illinois).
March: LZ works for Techlit Consultants, NYC
(Jerry Reisman’s company) editing instruction manuals (until Jan. 1947).
1947
January-February: LZ does substitute teaching at
Brooklyn Technical High School.
February: LZ begins teaching at Polytechnic
Institute of Brooklyn as instructor, where he will remain until his retirement as
an Associate Professor in 1966.
Summer: Teaches summer courses on Shakespeare
and Renaissance Literature at Colgate University, Hamilton, NY; begins writing
essay on Shakespeare that will evolve into Bottom
(finished 1960).
September: Teaches evening course in creative
writing at Queens College, Flushing, NY (until June 1948).
Winter: Reading performance of Arise, arise by the Dramatic Workshop
directed by Erwin Piscator, at the New School for Social Research.
1948
Begins second half of “A”-9 (finished 1950).
Summer: Zukofskys begin spending summers at Lyme
and Old Lyme, Conneticut where they buy a cottage (see Little).
September: A
Test of Poetry (compiled 1935-40) published by The Objectivist Press.
1949
September 1: Promoted to Assistant Professor at
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
1950
April 11: Death of LZ’s father, Pinchos
(mentioned in “A”-12).
Summer: Composes “A”-11.
Begins “A”-12
(finished Oct. 1951).
December 29: Receives Lola Ridge Memorial Award
from the Poetry Society of America.
1952
Summer: first of two summers Zukofskys spend in
upstate NY at Elizabethtown near Lake Champlain while PZ attends summer program
at nearby Meadowmount School of Music established by PZ’s violin teacher, Ivan
Galamian (see Little).
1953
Christmas: Niedecker visits the Zukofskys in
NYC.
1954
Summer: July 11 the Zukofskys visit Pound at St.
Elizabeths; PZ plays at Pound’s request (mentioned in “A”-13). The Zukofskys
continue on a trip to the South and West, including western Canada, via a visit
to Niedecker at Black Hawk Island, Wisconsin; LZ records reading for KPFA in
San Francisco on Aug. 6 (details mentioned in “A”-13).
1955
May: LZ promoted to Associate Professor at
Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn.
1956
September: Some
Time published by Jonathan Williams.
November 30: PZ’s first solo concert at Carnegie
Hall (an account appears in Little).
1957
June: Zukofskys move to 135 Willow Street,
Brooklyn Heights.
June 18-September 18: Zukofskys travel to Europe
via ship, visiting England, France, Italy and Switzerland (recorded in “4
Others Countries”); stay with Gael Turnbull in Worcester and Basil Bunting in
Northumbria; meets Olga Rudge in Sienna and
Cid Corman in Florence. Also visit St. Michel, Chartres, Poitiers,
Périgueux, the caves at Lascaux., Lake Como, Verona.
1958
CZ and LZ begin “translating” Catullus (finished
1966).
June 23-August 1: At Robert Duncan’s
instigation, poet in residence at San Francisco State College. 5 Statements for Poetry published June
25 as part of his teaching materials by SFSC.
September: Barely
and widely published by Celia Zukofsky.
November: Oppens visit in NYC.
1959
February 30: PZ’s second Carnegie Hall concert
(an account appears in Little).
June 29-July 16: Trip to Mexico driving
cross-country with the Oppens, visit pyramids at Teotihuacán near Mexico City
and return by airplane (see “Jaunt”)
December: “A”
1-12 published by Cid Corman’s Origin Press in Japan.
1960
May: LZ finishes Bottom.
July-September: Composes “A”-13.
December: Longview Foundation Award from Poetry magazine for section of Bottom.
1961
November: It
Was published by Origin Press in Japan (includes “It Was,” “A Keystone
Comedy” and Ferdinand, all written in
the early 1940s, plus “Thanks to the Dictionary,” written in the 1930s).
1962
February: Zukofskys move to 160 Columbia
Heights, Brooklyn.
September: 16
Once Published by The Wild Hawthorn Press (Edinburgh).
October 21-24: Attends 50th celebration of Poetry magazine at the Library of
Congress, Washington D.C., mentions meeting Mark Van Doren, Allen Tate, Delmore
Schwartz, Henry Rago.
1963
Receives Longview Foundation Award from Poetry magazine.
March: Composes “A”-17 in response to William Carlos Williams’ death on March 4.
May: I’s
(pronounced eyes) published by Trobar Press (NY).
May: Composes “A”-16.
October: Composes “A”-20 for PZ’s 20th birthday.
December 14: Gives reading at Harvard.
1964
February: Bottom:
On Shakespeare published by the Humanities Center of the University of
Texas, Austin (although dated Sept. 1963).
Receives the Union League Civic and Arts
Foundation Prize from Poetry magazine
for “A”-17.
June: Zukofskys move to 77 Seventh Avenue, NYC.
August-September: Composes “A”-14.
September: After
I’s published by Boxwood Press/Mother Press (Pittsburgh).
October-December: Composes “A”-15.
December: Begins “A”-18 (finished 1966).
December: Reprint of A Test of Poetry published by Jargon/Corinth.
1965
April: ALL:
The Collected Poems 1923-1958 published by W.W. Norton.
August: Retires from Polytechnic Institute of
Brooklyn.
August: Performance of Arise, arise at the Cinémathèque Theatre in NYC.
September 27-30: gives reading and lectures at
the University of Kentucky a the invitation of Guy Davenport.
December 14: At Yaddo writers’ colony (until
March 1, 1966) where LZ and CZ finish work on Catullus (February 1, 1966).
1966
February 12: Composes “A”-19 (finished May 29).
Receives Oscar Blumenthal-Charles Leviton Prize
from Poetry magazine for “A”-14 and
-15.
March 8: Continues with “A”-18 (finished April
28).
August 15: Begins “A”-21 (finished May 14,1967).
November: ALL:
The Collected Poems 1956-1964 published by W.W. Norton.
1967
June: Prepositions:
The Collected Critical Essays published by Rapp & Carroll (London);
American edition appears March 1968.
August: LZ returns to the novel Little, which he began in 1950 (finished
July 28, 1969).
1968
January 30: Reads at the Guggenheim Museum, NYC
sponsored by the Academy of American Poets.
March: CZ
presents LZ with L.Z. Masque, which
becomes “A”-24 (CZ began work on this
in 1966).
March: Attends Second Buffalo (NY) Festival of
the Arts Today, where he gives a reading broadcast live over radio on the 4th.
May 16: At the University of Wisconsin, Madison
for a reading and interview with L.S. Dembo as part of a series on the
“Objectivist” Poet—Oppen, Reznikoff and Rakosi had made their visits in the
preceding month. Sees Niedecker for the last time the following day.
1969
“A”
13-21
published by Jonathan Cape and Doubleday.
Catullus published by Cape Goliard and Grossman.
CZ’s A
Bibliography of Louis Zukofsky published by Black Sparrow Press.
May: Trip to London with CZ for two weeks; meets
Tom Pickard and David Jones; reads at U.S. Embassy on May 21 (see “On the Gas
Age”).
October 16: Reads at the University of Texas,
Austin.
November 20-22: Attends International Festival
of Poetry in Austin, Texas also attended by Creeley, Duncan, Czeslaw Milosz,
Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges.
1970
February: Begins “A”-22 (finished April 1973).
April:
Autobiography, a selection of short poems set to music by CZ, published by
Grossman.
September: Little
published by Grossman.
1971
March 31: Autobiography
performed at the Lincoln Center Library and Museum of the Performing Arts, NYC.
April 29: Reading and lecture at the Eighth
Annual Wallace Stevens program, University of Connecticut, Storrs (lecture
transcribed and revised as “Wallace Stevens”).
October 13-November 10: Guest Professorship at
the University of Connecticut, Storrs, giving a series of weekly seminars,
“Poetics as Autobiography” (described in Butterick).
1972
January: Family trip to Bermuda (details appear
at the end of “A”-22).
Summer: Zukofskys move to 240 Central Park
South, NYC.
“A”-24 published by Grossman.
November 9-December 14: with CZ in Bellagio,
Italy on Lake Como at the Villa Serbelloni as a Rockefeller Foundation fellow
(details appear at the end of “A”-22).
1973
April: Begins “A”-23 (finished Sept. 21, 1974).
April: Arise,
arise published by Grossman (written 1936).
Summer: Performance of Arise, arise and “A”-24
at the Cubiculo in NYC, attended by LZ.
October: LZ and CZ move to 306 East Broadway,
Port Jefferson, Long Island, NY.
1974
December: Begins composing 80 Flowers (finished Jan. 1978).
1975
September: “A”
22 & 23 published by Grossman.
June 15-17: Attends and reads at Symposium on
Ezra Pound, University of Maine, Orono.
1977
June 4: LZ receives Honorary D.Litt, from Bard
College, NY.
1978
February: Composes opening and only poem of Gamet: 90 Trees.
May 12: Death of LZ at Port Jefferson.
July: 80
Flowers published in limited edition by Stinehour Press, Vermont.
December: “A”
(complete edition) published by the University of California Press.
1979
CZ publishes American
Friends, printed by Stinehour Press, Vermont.
1980
November 18: Death of CZ in Port Jefferson.
Note: The
above chronology has been compiled from various sources, largely in the public
domain, not all of which are consistent with each other on specific details.
Mark Scroggins has generously shared some information he used in writing his
biography, which itself has supplied further details and refinements. Also I
have relied on Scroggins for more precise identification of composition dates
and occasional corrections of the primary source for such dates in Booth and
Henderson.
