Sydney Lea

Sydney Lea was born in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania.[2] Growing up, his father had a camp in Washington County, Maine.[6]

Lea attended Yale University, graduating with a B.A. in 1964.[7][8] While there, he was a member of the social and literary fraternity, St. Anthony Hall.[8] Later, he received a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Yale.[2] Robert Penn Warren was his mentor.[9]

Lea taught at Dartmouth College from 1969 to 1976.[4][10] He then taught at Middlebury College from 1976 to 1989 and at Yale University in 1979.[4][10] He was a professor in the MFA program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts from 1989 to 2002.[10][4] However, during that time, he also taught at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary while on a Fulbright Scholarship in 1992, at Wesleyan University in 1997, and at Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland in 2001.[4][10] He returned to Dartmouth from 1999 to 2002, becoming a professor in its graduate program in liberal studies from 2003 to 2011.[4][10]

In 1977, Lea co-founded the New England Review with Jay Parini in and edited it until 1989.[4][2] His work has appeared in literary journals and magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Los Angeles Review, The New Republic, The New York Times, Sports Illustrated, and Virginia Quarterly Review.[11][12][13][4][14][15]

In 1987, Lea received a Guggenheim Fellowship for poetry.[16] In 1996, his poetry collection To the Bone: New and Selected Poems was co-winner of the Poets' Prize.[9] His collection of poetry Pursuit of the Wound, published in 2000, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.[9]

Lea became Poet Laureate of Vermont in 2011.[7] The Advisory Committee who recommended him for the four-year position found "Lea's poetry to be virtuosic in texture and form, yet likely to be engaging to a diversity of readers and listeners because of the work's dramatic intensity, narrative momentum, and musicality, and because of this poet's extraordinarily evocative descriptions of northern New England's landscapes, animal and plant life, and the seasonal panorama."[7] The committee also said, "Through all of his books, Lea has paid particular attention to the stories of generations living alongside one another in north-country villages, including the interactions of 'old-timers' and relative newcomers. He continues the tradition of Vermont poets who are both singular—one of a kind—and broadly accessible."[7]

In a review of his 2013 poetry collection, I Was Thinking of Beauty, Jacqueline Kolosov notes, "For Lea, the moral and aesthetic cannot be separated. Though he is honest about his flaws and shortcomings in his poetry—one reason he quickly wins and sustains his readers' trust—his poems strive to teach us how to live while making us laugh at our need to take ourselves so seriously."[5]

His work across the genres has appeared in some sixty anthologies.[4] the composer Joseph Hallman turned Lea's poem "Mudtime" into a long-form song cycle for voice and string quartet.[3][17] Lea described as "a high point of my term as poet laureate. It was so refreshing and so different, a great shot in the arm."[3] It premiered in 2014 by Hallman's long term collaborator, Abigail Haynes-Lennox and the 802 Quartet at the Vermont College of Fine Arts.[3] Lea has since collaborated with the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble on a number of multimedia presentations.[18]

Lea's thirteenth collection of poetry, Here, was published by Four Way Books in 2019.[19] In a review of Here, Publishers Weekly writes, "Lea weaves a graceful tapestry of personal history while expressing his trademark wonder at the natural world in his quietly powerful 13th collection. His memories are not grand in scale; he recalls watching his daughter spill a glass of milk on a train, teaching his son to ride a bike, and schoolboy shenanigans such as a “slew of idiot tricks” pulled on a Latin instructor—yet these scenes become significant through Lea’s telling."[19]

His 2020 book, The Exquisite Triumph of Wormboy, is a graphic mock-epic poem in collaboration with former Vermont Cartoonist Laureate James Kochalka.[4] Released in 2021, Seen From All Sides is a collection of newspaper essays Lea wrote between 2011 and 2015 while he was the Poet Laureate of Vermont.[4]

In 2021, Lea received the Governor's Award for Excellence from the Vermont Arts Council.[20] This award "is reserved for artists both distinguished in their field, and who have had a profound impact on the state of Vermont."[20]

• 2021, Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, Vermont Arts Council[20]
• 2012: Conservation Hero, Field and Stream magazine[21]
• 2011 Poet Laureate of Vermont[4][7]
• 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry finalist for Pursuit of a Wound[9]
• 1998 Poets' Prize, for To the Bone: New and Selected Poems[9]
• 1992 Fulbright Scholarship, Eotvos Lorand University, Budapest[4][10]
• 1987 Guggenheim Fellowship, Siena, Italy[16][10]
• 1985 Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Bellagio Center[4][2]

In the early 1990s, Lea moved to Vermont.[7] He lives in Newbury, Vermont and has a camp in Washington County, Maine.[22][6] He has five adult children.[5]

He has served as the vice president of Central Vermont Adult Basic Education.[9] He is also active in the conservation effort in Washington County, Maine, helping to raise funds for the Downeast Lakes Land Trust.[9][4] He is currently a trustee emeritus of the Vermont College of Fine Arts.[23]

He plays the blues harmonica.[24]