Mercury Dressing

J. D. McClatchy was born Joseph Donald McClatchy Jr. in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania on August 12, 1945. He received a bachelor's degree from Georgetown University and a Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University. He taught at Yale University and Princeton University. He was the editor of The Yale Review from 1991 until his retirement in 2017.

He was a poet, editor, anthologist, translator, and critic. He wrote eight volumes of poetry including Scenes from Another Life, Stars Principal, Kilim, Ten Commandments, The Rest of the Way, Mercury Dressing, Hazmat, and Plundered Hearts. He edited the Library of America's 2007 volume Thornton Wilder: Collected Plays and Writings on Theater. His volumes of criticism included White Paper: On Contemporary American Poetry and Twenty Questions. His anthologies included Poets on Painters: Essays on the Art of Painting by Twentieth-Century Poets, The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Poetry, and Love Speaks Its Name: Gay and Lesbian Love Poems. His poems and essays appeared in numerous publications including The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, and The Paris Review. He received two Lambda Literary Awards and Poetry magazine's Levinson Prize. He was also the author of opera librettos. He died from cancer on April 10, 2018 at the age of 72.

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