Howard Moss

American poet

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History

Howard Moss (born Jan. 22, 1922, New York, N.Y., U.S.—died Sept. 16, 1987, New York) was an American poet and editor who was the poetry editor of The New Yorker magazine for almost 40 years.

Moss, whose father had immigrated to the United States from Lithuania, graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1943 and published the first of 12 volumes of poetry, The Wound and the Weather, in 1946. Later volumes include Finding Them Lost (1965), which shows, according to one critic, that Moss had “mastered the lyric,” and Buried City (1975), in which images of New York City hold sway in meditations on death and aging. Generally, Moss’s poetry exhibits a technical virtuosity and a lucid, compressed style that focuses on the “mysteries of the commonplace.”

Moss joined the staff of The New Yorker in 1948, and throughout his tenure there he showcased the works and helped establish the careers of such poets as Sylvia Plath, Richard Wilbur, and Elizabeth Bishop. Moss also published volumes of criticism and was an accomplished playwright. His plays include The Folding Green (1958), The Oedipus Mah-Jongg Scandal (1968), and The Palace at 4 A.M. (1972).