Lloyd Schwartz

This article is about the American poet. For the American television producer, see Lloyd J. Schwartz.

Lloyd Schwartz
Portrait of Lloyd Schwartz
Born	(1941-11-29) November 29, 1941 Brooklyn
Occupation	University of Massachusetts Boston
Education	Queens College (BA) Harvard University (MA, PhD)
Genre	Poetry, Music criticism

Lloyd Schwartz (born November 29, 1941) is an American poet, and the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Boston. He was the classical music editor of The Boston Phoenix, a publication that is now defunct. He is Poet Laureate of Somerville, Massachusetts (2019-2021), Senior Music Editor at New York Arts and the Berkshire Review for the Arts, and a regular commentator for NPR's Fresh Air.

Biography

Lloyd Schwartz was born in Brooklyn, New York, graduated from Queens College in 1962 and earned his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1976.

Schwartz's books of poetry include Who's on First? New and Selected Poems (University of Chicago Press, 2021), Little Kisses (University of Chicago Press, 2017, Cairo Traffic (University of Chicago Press, 2000) and the chapbook Greatest Hits 1973-2000 (Pudding House Press, 2003), which were preceded by Goodnight, Gracie (1992) and These People (1981). He co-edited the collection Elizabeth Bishop and Her Art (University of Michigan Press, 1983). In 1990, he adapted These People for the Poets' Theatre in a production called These People: Voices for the Stage, which he also directed.

Schwartz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 1994 for his work with The Boston Phoenix. and the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship in Poetry in 2019.

Schwartz served as co-editor of an edition of the collected works of Elizabeth Bishop for the Library of America, entitled Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters (2008) and edited the centennial edition of Elizabeth Bishop's Prose for Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2011).

His poems, articles, and reviews have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair, The New Republic, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, Agni, The Pushcart Prize, The Best American Poetry, and The Best of the Best American Poetry. Between 1968 and 1982 he worked as an actor in the Harvard Dramatic Club, HARPO, The Pooh Players, Poly-Arts, and the NPR series The Spider's Web, playing such roles as Scrooge (A Christmas Carol), the Mock Turtle (Alice in Wonderland), Froth (Measure for Measure), Trofimov (The Cherry Orchard), Zeal-of-the-Land Busy (Bartholomew Fair), The Worm (In the Jungle of Cities), Krapp (Krapp's Last Tape), the Disciple John (Jesus: A Passion Play for Cambridge), and played a leading role in Russell Merritt's short satirical film The Drones Must Die. He also directed two operas, Ravel's L'Heure Espagnole (Boston Summer Opera Theatre) and Stravinsky's Mavra (New England Chamber Opera Group), 1972. He has appeared in The Poets' Theatre performances of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood (2014) and The Word Exchange (2015).