Michael Benedikt
Michael Benedikt was born in 1935 in New York City. He received his BA from New York University and earned a master’s degree in English and comparative literature from Columbia University.
Benedikt’s books of poetry include The Badminton at Great Barrington; or, Gustave Mahler & The Chattanooga Choo-Choo (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980); Night Cries (Wesleyan University Press, 1976); Mole Notes (Wesleyan University Press, 1971); Sky (Wesleyan University Press, 1970); and The Body (Wesleyan University Press 1968).
Prior to publishing his first collection of poetry, Benedikt coedited three anthologies of twentieth-century poetic theater from abroad: Modern Spanish Theatre (Dutton, 1967); Post-War German Theatre (Dutton, 1966); and Modern French Theatre: The Avant-Garde, Dada, & Surrealism (Dutton, 1964). His anthology of twentieth-century American plays, Theatre Experiment (Doubleday), was issued in 1968. He is also the editor of two landmark anthologies of twentieth-century poetry: The Prose Poem: An International Anthology (Dell, 1976) and The Poetry of Surrealism (Little Brown & Co., 1974). A critical Festschrift, Benedikt: A Profile was issued by Grilled Flowers Press in 1978.
Benedikt’s honors include a New York State Council for the Arts Grant, a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, and a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Benedikt was an editorial assistant for Horizon Press from 1959 to 1962, and from 1963 to 1964 served as managing editor for the literary magazine Locus Solus. He was poetry editor for The Paris Review from 1975 to 1978. His editorial selections therein are represented in The Paris Review Anthology (1990). Occasionally active as a literary critic and journalist, he was also an associate editor of Art News and Art International. His literary criticism has appeared in Poetry magazine and The American Book Review. Benedikt taught at Bennington College, Sarah Lawrence College, Vassar College, Hampshire College, and Boston University. He died on February 9, 2007.
