Robert Lowell (1917-1977) was born in Boston, Massachusetts, into a prominent New England family and became a central figure of confessional poetry. He is the author of Life Studies (Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1959). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry twice, for Lord Weary's Castle (1947) and The Dolphin (1974). A conscientious objector during World War II, he was imprisoned for refusing to serve. He taught at Boston University, where his students included Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, and served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress.
