Soul Is Here for Its Own Joy

Robert Bly (1926-2021), born in Madison, Minnesota, was an American poet, translator, and editor. He founded the literary magazine The Fifties, later The Sixties and The Seventies, which published deep image poetry and translations. His collection The Light Around the Body (Harper and Row, 1967) won the 1968 National Book Award for Poetry; he gave the prize money to the anti-Vietnam War effort. His prose book Iron John: A Book About Men (Addison-Wesley, 1990) was a bestseller. He translated work by Pablo Neruda, Rainer Maria Rilke, Federico García Lorca, and Kabir.