Hillyer, Robert Silliman, << HIHL yuhr, ROB urt SIHL ih muhn >> (1895-1961), an American poet, won the 1934 Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his Collected Verse (1933). He was an expert craftsman, writing in a variety of difficult poetic forms. His subjects include tributes to his friends and to poets he admired, lyric descriptions of the seasons in New England, and his experiences as an amateur yachtsman. Hillyer’s poetry has a gentle, sophisticated tone that reflects a sly sense of humor and self-mockery. Hillyer also wrote novels and literary criticism.
Hillyer was born on June 3, 1895, in East Orange, New Jersey, and taught at Harvard University from 1919 to 1945. In the late 1940’s, he aroused great controversy by attacking the poets T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound. He wrote that these poets and their followers had rejected what was most important in American life and had adopted positions that were dangerously undemocratic. He died on Dec. 24, 1961.
