Amy Clampitt, the ‘Late Bloomer’ of Poetry

Amy Clampitt, widely eulogized as a “late bloomer,” was 63 years old before she was recognized as a world-class poet. Rising to meteoric heights in the poetry world is by itself daunting, but when one considers her age and that most poets burn bright in their 20s and then steadily lose their fire, one is even more impressed. Willard Spiegelman’s probing biography, Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt, describes how she did it.