Robert Lowell Biography

Robert Lowell was an American poet whose confessional works grappled with the sweep of history and the dark recesses of the self. Initially influenced by his conversion to Catholicism, his early, formally rigorous poetry explored the shadowed American past, earning praise for its powerful handling of meter and rhyme. Later, responding to personal and psychological turmoil, his work shifted towards direct personal experience with a looser form, creating a watershed collection that reshaped modern poetry. Considered a preeminent voice in English-language poetry for the latter half of the twentieth century, Lowell defined the restless core of American verse.