James Dickey (1923–97,) fully James Lafayette Dickey, was an American poet, novelist, and critic. He is best known for his poetry that blended nature, mysticism, religion, and history.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Dickey attended Clemson College before serving as a fighter-bomber pilot in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. After the war, he earned B.A. (1949) and M.A. (1950) degrees from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. He also served as an Air Force training officer during the Korean War.
Dickey wrote ads for Coca-Cola and fertilizer and potato chip companies before shifting to write poetry full-time. He was known for his passionate concern for the frail harmony of nature and human enterprise. His early compilations include Into the Stone (1960,) Drowning with Others (1962; republished in part as The Owl King, 1977,) and Helmets (1964.)
Dickey’s broader fame depends on his one novel, Deliverance (1972,) a Hemingwayesque rite of passage set against the damming and flooding of a wild valley. British filmmaker John Boorman famously filmed it. Later poetry collections highlighted Dickey’s deep narrative urge: The Zodiac (1976,) The Strength of Fields (1977,) Head-Deep in Strange Sounds: Free Flight Improvisations from the UnEnglish (1979) and Falling, May Day Sermon and Other Poems (1981.)
Dickey’s poems have been collected in three volumes: Poems, 1957–67 (1967,) The Achievement of James Dickey (1968,) and The Central Motion: Poems 1968–79 (1983.) Later publications include Alnilam (1987) and To the White Sea (1993.) He also published Self-Interviews (1970.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by James Dickey
I feel very happy to see the sun come up every day. I feel happy to be around … I like to take this day—any day—and go to town with it.
—James Dickey
Flight is the only truly new sensation than men have achieved in modern history.
—James Dickey
Topics: Flying
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Norman Mailer American Novelist, Journalist
Conrad Aiken American Poet, Novelist
John Updike American Author
Stanley Kunitz American Poet
Mark Van Doren American Poet, Critic
Paul Auster American Novelist, Poet
Hervey Allen American Author
Wendell Berry American Author, Environmentalist
L. Frank Baum American Writer
Langston Hughes American Poet, Writer