Anthony Hecht Anthony Evan Hecht ( January 16 , 1923 – October 20 , 2004 ) was an American poet . His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history , with the Second World War , in which he fought , and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work . Biography . Early years . Hecht was born in New York City to German - Jewish parents . He was educated at various schools in the city - he was a classmate of Jack Kerouac at Horace Mann School - but showed no great academic ability , something he would later refer to as " conspicuous . " However , as a freshman English student at Bard College in New York he discovered the works of Stevens , Auden , Eliot , and Dylan Thomas . It was at this point that he decided he would become a poet . Hecht ' s parents were not happy at his plans and tried to discourage them , even getting family friend Ted Geisel , better known as Dr . Seuss , to attempt to dissuade him . In 1944 , upon completing his final year at Bard , Hecht was drafted into the 97th Infantry Division and was sent to the battlefields in Europe . He saw combat in Germany in the " Ruhr Pocket " and in Cheb in Czechoslovakia . However , his most significant experience occurred on April 23 , 1945 when Hecht ' s division helped liberate Flossenbürg concentration camp . Hecht was ordered to interview French prisoners in the hope of gathering evidence on the camp ' s commanders . Years later , Hecht said of this experience , The place , the suffering , the prisoners ' accounts were beyond comprehension . For years after I would wake shrieking . Career . After the war ended , Hecht was sent to Japan where he became a staff writer with " Stars and Stripes " . He returned to the US in March 1946 and immediately took advantage of the G . I . bill to study under the poet - critic John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College , Ohio . Here he came into contact with fellow poets such as Randall Jarrell , Elizabeth Bishop , and Allen Tate . He later received his Master ' s Degree from Columbia University . In 1947 Hecht attended the University of Iowa and taught in the Iowa Writers ' Workshop , together with writer Robie Macauley , with whom Hecht had served during World War II , but , suffering from post - traumatic stress disorder after his war service , gave it up swiftly to enter psychoanalysis . Hecht released his first collection , " A Summoning of Stones " , in 1954 . In this work his mastery of a wide range of poetic forms were clear as was his awareness of the forces of history , which he had seen first hand . Even at this stage Hecht ' s poetry was often compared with that of Auden , with whom Hecht had become friends in 1951 during a holiday on the Italian island of Ischia , where Auden spent each summer . In 1993 Hecht published " The Hidden Law " , a critical reading of Auden ' s body of work . During his career Hecht won many fans , and prizes , including the Rome Prize in 1951 and the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his second work " The Hard Hours " . It was within this volume that Hecht first addressed his own experiences of World War II - memories that had caused him to have a nervous breakdown in 1959 . Hecht spent three months in hospital following his breakdown , although he was spared electric shock therapy , unlike Sylvia Plath , whom he had encountered while teaching at Smith College . Hecht ' s main source of income was as a teacher of poetry , most notably at the University of Rochester where he taught from 1967 to 1985 . He also spent varying lengths of time teaching at other notable institutions such as Smith , Bard , Harvard , Georgetown , and Yale . Between 1982 and 1984 , he held the esteemed position of Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress . Hecht won a number of notable literary awards including : the 1968 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry ( for the volume " The Hard Hours " ) , the 1983 Bollingen Prize , the 1988 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize , the 1989 Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry , the 1997 Wallace Stevens Award , the 1999 / 2000 Frost Medal , and the Tanning Prize . Hecht died October 20 , 2004 , at his home in Washington , D . C . ; he is buried at the cemetery at Bard College . One month later , on November 17 , Hecht was awarded the National Medal of Arts , accepted on his behalf by his wife , Helen Hecht . The Anthony Hecht prize is awarded annually by the Waywiser press . Double Dactyl . Hecht is also notably one of the inventors of the double dactyl , a form of light verse . In his weekly on - line chat on January 22 , 2008 , Gene Weingarten of the " Washington Post " wrote a double dactyl to honor Hecht :