Frederick Seidel, The Art of Poetry No. 95
Frederick Seidel , The Art of Poetry No. 95 Interviewed by Jonathan Galassi Issue 190, Fall 2009 Frederick Seidel with friends, 2005. Frederick Seidel lives, as he has for several decades, in a rambling, light-filled apartment on New York’s Upper West Side. The place is comfortable and inviting, with paintings by friends on the walls and bibelots atop companionable, lived-with antique furniture. In the hallway is a life-size portrait by Alfred Eisenstaedt of the poet’s fellow St. Louisan T. S. Eliot, alongside another, of the Russian poet Osip Mandelstam. In contrast with the warm, stately order of the public rooms, the poet’s study at the end of the hall is a book-filled place of turbulent busyness, with an eagle’s-nest view down Broadway. Seidel, who is seventy-three, speaks precisely, with what used to be called a Harvard accent. What can seem like hauteur gives way, on further acquaintance, to a genial sunniness; the poet’s conversation is often punctuated by peals of ...