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| Saskia Hamilton | |
Saskia Hamilton, an award-winning poet "who also shed new light on the tumultuous relationship between the poet Robert Lowell and the writer Elizabeth Hardwick with a 2019 book compiling their letters and those of their friends," died June 7, the New York Times reported. She was 56.
Hamilton joined the English department at Barnard College in 2002 and was made a vice-provost in 2018. In a tribute posted on Barnard's website, Linda A. Bell, provost and dean of the faculty, praised her as "a cherished colleague, offering her kindness, energy, and intellect to all those in her orbit. An accomplished poet and editor, she used beautiful words to limn grief and loss, and so it is a particular challenge for me to describe my sadness at her death."
In one of the poems in Hamilton's forthcoming collection, All Souls, she wrote of her work as an editor, describing how she "spent the hours that season/ in a basement library magnifying/ Bishop's hand ten times to read the word/ 'tidal.' " Bell observed that this "evocative image captures Saskia's approach to all of her work and relationships; she brought attention and care to others' ideas, and she made certain that she understood their words." Her other poetry collections include As for Dream (2001), Corridor (2014), and This Hour (2017)
Hamilton "was also acclaimed for illuminating the work and lives of other writers, especially Mr. Lowell," the Times noted. In 2005, she published The Letters of Robert Lowell, and three years later released Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, which she edited with Thomas Travisano. It covered 30 years of correspondence between the two Pulitzer-winning poets. Her most discussed book was The Dolphin Letters, 1970-1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle, which used letters to explore a controversial element of Lowell's career.
Her honors include an American Academy of Arts and Letters Award, the Poetry Foundation's Pegasus Award for Poetry Criticism, and the Modern Language Association's Morton N. Cohen Award.
In her tribute to Hamilton, Bell wrote: "Words are inadequate to capture our love for her in life and our sadness at her passing. We will think of her often as we continue to feel the space left by her passing."