Paul Mariani

Life

Mariani grew up on Long Island, the eldest of seven children. He earned his bachelor's degree from Manhattan College in 1962, a master's from Colgate University, and a Ph.D. from the City University of New York.

Mariani taught at Colgate University (1963), Hunter College (1964–1967), Lehman College (1965-1966) and the John Jay College of Criminal Justice (1966–1968). From 1968 until 2000, he taught at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where he became a Distinguished Professor of English. He taught at the Bread Loaf School of English in the 1980s and at the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference from 1982 until 1996. In 2000, he began teaching at Boston College, where he is the University Professor of English.

Mariani's published work includes six biographies and seven volumes of poetry, as well as several critical studies of modern poetry and a spiritual memoir, Thirty Days. In 2009, he was awarded the John Ciardi Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. He has been honored with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

James Franco's film biopic of Hart Crane, The Broken Tower, released in 2012, is based on Mariani's biography of the same title.

Selected works