Rachel Hadas Explained

Rachel Hadas (born November 8, 1948) is an American poet, teacher, essayist, and translator. Her most recent essay collection is Piece by Piece: Selected Prose (Paul Dry Books, 2021),^[1] and her most recent poetry collection is Ghost Guest (Ragged Sky Press, 2023).^{[2] [3]} Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, Ingram Merrill Foundation Grants,^[4] the O.B. Hardison Award from the Folger Shakespeare Library, and an Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.^[5]

Biography

The daughter of noted Columbia University classicist Moses Hadas and Latin teacher Elizabeth Chamberlayne Hadas, Hadas grew up in Morningside Heights, New York City. She received a baccalaureate at Radcliffe College in classics, a Master of Arts (1977) at Johns Hopkins University in poetry, and a doctorate at Princeton University in comparative literature (1982).

Living in Greece after her undergraduate work at Radcliffe, Hadas became an intimate of poet James Merrill, a strong influence on her early work.^[6] Her subject matter combines her roots in the classics with the intimately personal, with memory and elegy recurring themes throughout her work. Her late husband George Edwards’s illness with early-onset dementia gave rise not only to her 2011 memoir Strange Relation but also to an involvement in the field of medical humanities.^{[7] [8]}  During the height of the AIDS crisis, she led poetry workshops for those afflicted, and edited an anthology of poems produced there, Unending Dialogue: Poems from an AIDS Poetry Workshop (1993).^[9]

Hadas is also a translator, specializing in Classical Greek and Latin, and has translated the works of Euripides and Nonnus.^{[10] [11] [12]} Her translations of writers including Tibullus, Charles Baudelaire, and the Greek poet Konstantinos Karyotakis, were collected in Other Worlds Than This (1994).^[13] Hadas currently serves as Original English Verse Editor of the journal Classical Outlook.

Hadas taught English at the Newark campus of Rutgers University from 1981 to 2023; in 2001 she was named Board of Governors Professor of English.^[14] Hadas lives in New York City and Danville Vermont and is married to the visual artist Shalom Gorewitz, with whom she collaborates on poetry and video.^{[15] [16] [17]} She was married to composer George Edwards until his death in 2011.^[18] Hadas has a son, Jonathan Hadas Edwards (born 1984), an acupuncturist, herbalist, and writer.^[19]

Bibliography

Poetry and Prose

Collections

• Ghost Guest, Ragged Sky Press, 2023,
• Pandemic Almanac, Ragged Sky Press, 2022,
• Love and Dread, Measure Press, 2021,
• Piece by Piece, Paul Dry Books, 2021,
• Poems for Camilla, Measure Press, 2018,
• Questions in the Vestibule: Poems, Northwestern University Press, 2016,
• Book: The golden road: poems. TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. 2012. 9780810128590. Evanston, Ill..
• Strange Relation, Paul Dry Books, 2011,
• The Ache of Appetite, Copper Beech Press, 2010,
• River of Forgetfulness, David Robert Books, 2006, ; (WordTech Communications, 2006)
• Laws, University of Nebraska Press, 2004),
• Book: Merrill, Cavafy, poems, and dreams. The University of Michigan Press. 2000. Ann Arbor.
• Book: Indelible. Wesleyan University Press. 2001. 978-0-8195-6440-5.
• Book: Halfway Down the Hall. (Wesleyan University Press. 1998. 978-0-8195-2251-1.
• The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths (Faber & Faber, 1995)
• Book: The Empty Bed. Wesleyan University Press. 1995. 978-0-8195-1225-3.
• Mirrors of Astonishment (Rutgers University Press, 1992)
• Living in Time (Rutgers University Press, 1990)
• Pass It On, Princeton University Press, 1989,
• Book: A Son from Sleep. Wesleyan University Press. 1987. 978-0-8195-1140-9.
• Slow Transparency (Wesleyan University Press, 1983)

Chapbooks

• Starting from Troy (David R. Godine, 1975)
• "Two Poems" (Dim Gray Bar Press, 2000)

Translations

• Tales of Dionysus, University of Michigan Press, 2022
• The Iphigenia Plays of Euripides, Northwestern University Press 2018,
• Other Worlds Than This, Rutgers University Press, 1994

Anthologies edited

• The Waiting Room Reader II, CavanKerry Press, 2013,
• The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present (W.W. Norton, 2010; Eds., Peter Constantine, Rachel Hadas, Edmund Keeley, Karen Van Dyck)
• Unending Dialogue: Voices from an AIDS Poetry Workshop (Ed. with Charles Barber, Faber & Faber, 1991)

Essay collections

• Classics: Essays (Textos Books, 2007)
• Merrill, Cavafy, Poems, and Dreams (University of Michigan Press, 2000)
• Book: Form, Cycle, Infinity: Landscape Imagery in the Poetry of Robert Frost & George Seferis. Bucknell University Press. 1985. 978-0-8387-5073-5.

Memoirs

• Book: Strange Relation: A Memoir of Marriage, Dementia, and Poetry. Paul Dry Books. 2011. 978-1-58988-061-0 .

Sources

• Library of Congress Online Catalog > Rachel Hadas

External links

• RachelHadas.net Author Website
• Audio Reading: Rachel Hadas reads from Euripedes' poem Helen
• Audio Reading: Rachel Hadas reads a poem by Sappho
• Contemporary Poetry Review > 2009 > Interview: The CPR Interview: Rachel Hadas

Notes and References

1. Web site: 2022-11-25 . Lyrics in Search of an Allegory: On Three Recent Books from Rachel Hadas . 2024-02-09 . Los Angeles Review of Books.
2. Web site: Rachel Hadas - Literary Matters . 2024-02-09 . en-US.
3. Web site: ISBN 9781933974521 - Ghost Guest: Poems . 2024-02-09 . isbnsearch.org.
4. http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/195 Academy of American Poets > Rachel Hadas Biography
5. Web site: Foundation . Poetry . 2024-02-09 . Rachel Hadas . 2024-02-09 . Poetry Foundation . en.
6. Web site: Memories of Merrill . 2024-02-12 . James Merrill House . en.
7. Web site: Strange Relation—A memoir of marriage, dementia, and poetry . 2024-02-09 . medhum.med.nyu.edu.
8. Web site: 2022-05-22 . Though Much Is Taken, Much Abides: Fifteen Years of Literature & Medicine - Rachel Hadas - Literary Matters . 2024-02-09 . en-US.
9. Web site: Unending dialogue : voices from an AIDS poetry workshop WorldCat.org . 2024-02-09 . search.worldcat.org . en.
10. Web site: 2018-06-25 . On Translation - Rachel Hadas - Literary Matters . 2024-02-09 . en-US.
11. Web site: The Iphigenia Plays . 2024-02-09 . Northwestern University Press . en-US.
12. Review of: Tales of Dionysus: the Dionysiaca of Nonnus of Panopolis . Bryn Mawr Classical Review . 1055-7660.
13. Web site: Other Worlds Than This . 2024-02-09 . Bucknell University Press . en-US.
14. Web site: Rachel Hadas, Author at The American Scholar . 2024-02-09 . The American Scholar . en-US.
15. Web site: Electronic Arts Intermix: Offering to Yemaya, Shalom Gorewitz . 2024-02-09 . www.eai.org.
16. Web site: Rachel C. Hadas. 2021-07-09. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. en.
17. Web site: 2014-08-14 . Athenaeum Celebrating Readings In The Gallery With Dedication Of New Sculpture . 2024-02-09 . Caledonian Record . en.
18. Web site: Poets . Academy of American . Rachel Hadas . 2024-02-09 . Poets.org . en.
19. Web site: Author Bio Jonathan Fakayode Hadas Edwards – LEON Literary Review . 2024-02-09 . leonliteraryreview.com.