Galway Kinnell

Today the first of February, It's the birthday of poet Galway Kinnell, born in Providence, Rhode Island (1927). He became obsessed with the poetry of William Butler Yeats in college when his roommate, the poet W. S. Merwin, woke him up one night and read Yeats to him until dawn. After that night, Kinnell devoted himself to writing poetry.

He's the author of many books of poetry, including Body Rags (1968) and Mortal Acts, Mortal Words (1980). His Selected Poems (1980) won both a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize for poetry. He said, "Maybe the best we can do is do what we love as best we can."

From the writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor