John Hall Wheelock (September 9, 1886 – March 22, 1978) was an American poet. A descendant of Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College, his parents were William Efner Wheelock and Emily Charlotte Hall, This reference was based on information found in the following: "Twentieth Century Authors, A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature", Edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Howard Haycraft, published 1942 in New York by The H. W. Wilson Company. "Twentieth Century Authors, First Supplement, A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Literature", Edited by Stanley J. Kunitz and Vineta Colby, published 1955 in New York by The H. W. Wilson Company. "Contemporary Authors", edited by Clare D. Kinsman, published 1965 by Gale Research Company. "Contemporary Authors", edited by Frances Carol Locher, published 1979 by Gale Research Company. John Hall Wheelock was born in Far Rockaway, New York, and brought up in the neighborhood now occupied by Rockefeller Center. He summered in a family home on Long Island's South Fork, which provided inspiration for much of his work.
Wheelock's parents encouraged the reading and memorization of poetry, and told of the time when they had seen the great poet Walt Whitman, when John was a baby.
John Hall Wheelock graduated from Harvard University in 1908, and was class poet. As a student, he was editor-in-chief of The Harvard Monthly, and published his first work, Verses by Two Undergraduates, anonymously with his friend Van Wyck Brooks during their freshman year. In 1910, he began work with Charles Scribner and Sons and by 1947 had risen to the position of senior editor. During his career he worked with such distinguished authors as Thomas Wolfe and James Truslow Adams and is noted for discovering poets May Swenson and James Dickey.
Wheelock's published volume of Collected Works was awarded the Golden Rose by the New England Poetry Society in 1936, as the most distinguished contribution to American poetry of that year. For his work Poems Old and New he received the Ridgely Torrence Memorial Award in 1956, and the Borestone Mountain Poetry Award in 1957. In 1962 he won the Bollingen Prize; in 1965 the Signet Society Medal, Harvard University, for distinguished achievement in the arts. In 1972 he was awarded the Gold Medal by the Poetry Society of America for notable achievement in poetry.
John Hall Wheelock was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Poetry Society of America (Vice president, 1944-1946), National Institute of Arts and Letters (vice-president), and the Academy of American Poets (chancellor, 1947–71; honorary fellow, 1974-1978). He was an honorary consultant in American letters to the Library of Congress.
In 1940, John Hall Wheelock married Phyllis E. DeKay, the daughter of Charles DeKay, poet and art critic.
Works Verses by Two Undergraduates
The Bright Doom, Scribner, 1927 Collected Poems, 1911-1936, Scribner, 1936 Editor to Author: The Letters of Maxwell E. Perkins, 1950. (editor) Poems Old and New, Scribner, 1956 The Gardner and Other Poems, Scribner, 1961 What is Poetry?, Scribner, 1963 Dear Men and Women: New Poems, Scribner, 1966 By Daylight and in Dream: New and Collected Poems, 1904-1970, Scribner, 1970 In Love and Song: Poems, Scribner, 1971. Nirvana
References
External links
"Sunday Evening in the Common" by John Hall Wheelock A Bibliography of Theodore Roosevelt by John Hall Wheelock