Jean Starr Untermeyer
1886—1970
Born in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1886, poet, lyricist, and translator Jean Starr Untermeyer was educated at Columbia University. Though she initially planned on a singing career, she was drawn to poetry in part because of her husband, the writer and anthologist Louis Untermeyer. Through Untermeyer, she made contact with poets such as Sara Teasdale, Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, and Amy Lowell. After hearing Edna St. Vincent Millay read, Untermeyer began composing her own poems.
Untermeyer’s poems are often formal, though she occasionally used free verse. They explore themes of self-discipline and loss, taking both nature and domestic life as their subjects. Untermeyer published eight volumes of poetry during her life, including Dreams Out of Darkness (1921), Steep Ascent (1927), The Winged Child (1936), and Love and Need: Collected Poems 1918–1940 (1940), as well as the memoir Private Collection (1965). She also wrote lyrics for music by Samuel Adler and translated both Oscar Bie’s biography Schubert, the Man (1928) and Hermann Broch’s novel The Death of Virgil (1946). Re-Creations (1970) is a collection of poems she translated from French, German, and Hebrew.
Untermeyer served on the board of the Poetry Guild and taught at Olivet College and the New School for Social Research. She died in New York City in 1970. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University holds a selection of her papers.
Untermeyer’s poems are often formal, though she occasionally used free verse. They explore themes of self-discipline and loss, taking both nature and domestic life as their subjects. Untermeyer published eight volumes of poetry during her life, including Dreams Out of Darkness (1921), Steep Ascent (1927), The Winged Child (1936), and Love and Need: Collected Poems 1918–1940 (1940), as well as the memoir Private Collection (1965). She also wrote lyrics for music by Samuel Adler and translated both Oscar Bie’s biography Schubert, the Man (1928) and Hermann Broch’s novel The Death of Virgil (1946). Re-Creations (1970) is a collection of poems she translated from French, German, and Hebrew.
Untermeyer served on the board of the Poetry Guild and taught at Olivet College and the New School for Social Research. She died in New York City in 1970. The Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University holds a selection of her papers.