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

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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).[5]

Living in Greece after her undergraduate work at Radcliffe, Hadas became an intimate of poet James Merrill, a strong influence on her early work.[5][6] Her subject matter combines her roots in the classics with the intimately personal, with memory and elegy recurring themes throughout her work.[5] 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][17]

Bibliography

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Poetry and Prose

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Collections
  • Ghost Guest, Ragged Sky Press, 2023, ISBN 978-1-933974-52-1
  • Pandemic Almanac, Ragged Sky Press, 2022, ISBN 978-1933974453
  • Love and Dread, Measure Press, 2021, ISBN 978-1939574329
  • Piece by Piece, Paul Dry Books, 2021, ISBN 9781589881556
  • Poems for Camilla, Measure Press, 2018, ISBN 1939574250
  • Questions in the Vestibule: Poems, Northwestern University Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-8101-3317-4
  • The golden road: poems. Evanston, Ill.: TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press. 2012. ISBN 9780810128590.
  • Strange Relation, Paul Dry Books, 2011, ISBN 978-1-58988-061-0
  • The Ache of Appetite, Copper Beech Press, 2010, ISBN 978-0-914278-84-9
  • River of Forgetfulness, David Robert Books, 2006, ISBN 978-1-933456-24-9; (WordTech Communications, 2006)
  • Laws, University of Nebraska Press, 2004), ISBN 978-1-932023-13-8
  • Merrill, Cavafy, poems, and dreams. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. 2000.
  • Indelible. Wesleyan University Press. 2001. ISBN 978-0-8195-6440-5.
  • Halfway Down the Hall. (Wesleyan University Press. 1998. ISBN 978-0-8195-2251-1.
  • The Double Legacy: Reflections on a Pair of Deaths (Faber & Faber, 1995)
  • The Empty Bed. Wesleyan University Press. 1995. ISBN 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, ISBN 978-0-691-01454-8
  • A Son from Sleep. Wesleyan University Press. 1987. ISBN 978-0-8195-1140-9.
  • Slow Transparency (Wesleyan University Press, 1983)
Chapbooks

Translations

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  • Tales of Dionysus, University of Michigan Press, 2022 ISBN 9780472038961
  • The Iphigenia Plays of Euripides, Northwestern University Press 2018, ISBN 9780810137233
  • Other Worlds Than This, Rutgers University Press, 1994

Anthologies edited

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  • The Waiting Room Reader II, CavanKerry Press, 2013, ISBN 978-1-933880-34-1
  • 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

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Memoirs

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References

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

Sources

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