Who is Karl Shapiro

Karl Jay Shapiro (November 10, 1913 – May 14, 2000) was an American poet. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 for his collection V-Letter and Other Poems. He was appointed the fifth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1946.

Born and initially raised in Baltimore, Maryland, Shapiro served in the Pacific Theater as a United States Army company clerk during World War II.

Biography

Karl Shapiro was born and initially raised in Baltimore, Maryland. After spending much of his childhood and adolescence in Chicago, Illinois, the family returned to Baltimore, where he completed his secondary education at Baltimore City College. He briefly attended the University of Virginia during the 1932-1933 academic year, and immo...
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Karl Shapiro Poems

  • The Olive Tree
    Save for a lusterless honing-stone of moon
    The sky stretches its flawless canopy
    Blue as the blue silk of the Jewish flag
    Over the valley and out to sea. ...
  • Going To School
    What shall I teach in the vivid afternoon
    With the sun warming the blackboard and a slip
    Of cloud catching my eye?
    Only the cones and sections of the moon. ...
  • The Dome Of Sunday
    With focus sharp as Flemish-painted face
    In film of varnish brightly fixed
    And through a polished hand-lens deeply seen,
    Sunday at noon through hyaline thin air ...
  • Troop Train
    It stops the town we come through. Workers raise
    Their oily arms in good salute and grin.
    Kids scream as at a circus. Business men
    Glance hopefully and go their measured way. ...
  • Love For A Hand
    Two hands lie still, the hairy and the white,
    And soon down ladders of reflected light
    The sleepers climb in silence. Gradually
    They separate on paths of long ago, ...
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Top 10 most used topics by Karl Shapiro

Black 7 Light 6 I Love You 5 Sleep 5 Green 5 Hair 5 Kiss 5 Face 5 War 5 World 5


Karl Shapiro Quotes

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Comments about Karl Shapiro

Aridrennen: neil degrasse tyson destroys ben shapiro with facts and logic
Sherlyholmes: poem of the day: "hollywood” by karl shapiro.
Lukacsmoe: karl shapiro, cranky but compelling
Sallyjos: thought of this karl shapiro poem this morning after a conversation with a friend. memorized it years ago,
Millerstream: thank god. his name never fit in with the other desantis bros like obama megadonor ken griffin, jeb!, karl rove, jonah goldberg, paul ryan, meghan mccain, dave rubin, ben domenech, ben shapiro, bill barr, the koch brothers, erick erickson, john bolton, david frum…who else?
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Poem of the day

Edgar Albert Guest Poem
The Killing Place
 by Edgar Albert Guest

We're hiking along at a two-forty pace
We 're making life seem like a man-killing race,
With our nerves all on edge and our jaws firmly set
We go rushing along; with our brows lined with sweat
And our cheeks pale and drawn every minute we dash,
And the goal that we 're after is merely more cash.

We 're out for the money, the greenbacks and gold,
...

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