Ben Belitt

Ben Belitt studied at University of Virginia. The recorded working language is English and Spanish. The field of work recorded is poetry, translation from Spanish and translation into English. Employment is recorded with Bennington College, Mills College at Northeastern University and Connecticut College. Distinctions recorded are Guggenheim Fellowship, Shelley Memorial Award and Russell Loines Award for Poetry.

• Name — Ben Belitt • Born — 2 May 1911 • Birthplace — New York City, New York • Died — 17 August 2003 • Occupation — Poet, translator

Belitt was born in New York City. He was educated at the University of Virginia, receiving a B.A. in 1932 and an M.A. in 1934, and he was a doctoral student at that university from 1934 to 1936. By the early 1940s, he had taken up an appointment at Bennington College in Bennington, Vermont, where he remained, living in a former firehouse in North Bennington, for the rest of his life. A bachelor, he became a good friend of the dancer (and fellow teacher at Bennington) Bill Bales, of his wife Jo Van Fleet, and of their son Michael Bales, and regularly spent holidays with this family at Bennington or in New York City.

Belitt was the author of eight books of poems; his complete poems This Scribe, My Hand, was published in 1998 by Louisiana State University Press. He wrote two books of essays and over thirteen books of translations. He taught for many decades at Bennington College. After retiring from Bennington College, he continued to live in North Bennington, Vermont and held the position of professor emeritus of Language and Literature at the college. He died in Bennington on August 17, 2003, at the age of 92 and was buried in Manchester, Vermont. His papers are held by the University of Virginia.

• The Five-Fold Mesh. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1938. • Wilderness Stair: Poems, 1938-1954. New York: Grove Press, 1955. • The Enemy Joy: New and Selected Poems. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1964. • Nothing But Light: Poems, 1964-1969. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970. • The Double Witness: Poems, 1970-1976. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977. • Possessions, New and Selected Poems, 1938 - 1985. New York: David Godine, 1986.. • This Scribe, My Hand: The Complete Poems of Ben Belitt. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1998...

• García Lorca, Federico (1955). Poet in New York, (Grove Press) • García Lorca, Federico (1963). Joy of the Day • García Lorca, Federico (1964). Ode to Salvador Dalí • Alberti, Rafael, (1966). Selected Poems, (University of California Press). Introduction by Luis Monguió • Neruda, Pablo (1961). Selected Poems Edited and translated by Ben Belitt. Introduction by Luis Monguió. • Neruda, Pablo (1963). Poems for the Mind • Neruda, Pablo (1972). New Poems (1968-1970) (Grove Press)