Amy Clampitt (1920-94) didn’t devote herself to poetry until she was in her forties, when she began to be published in the New Yorker. Despite her late start and relatively brief career, reknown critic Harold bloom included her 1990 book Westward in his influential book, the Western Canon. At the time of her death from cancer, Ms. Clampitt was a Lenox resident. Her home has become the location of The Amy Clampitt Residency Program.
Poetry by Amy Clampitt
The following is the opening stanza of Amy Clampitt’s poem, The Godfather Returns to Color TV
The lit night glares like a day-glo strawberry,
the stakeout car beside the hydrant is full of feds,
and the ikon of our secret hero(ine?), atop the
feckless funnypaper mesa we try to live in, is that
poor dumb indestructible super-loser Krazy Kat.