After receiving his M.A., Dickey taught at the Rice Institute in Houston, Texas, until the Air Force recalled him to serve in the Korean War, where he earned five bronze stars and was promoted to Second Lieutenant.įollowing the war, Dickey accepted a position at the University of Florida, but resigned a year later after controversy of his poem, “The Father’s Body,” which many considered offensive. He graduated magna cum laude a year later with his B.A. In 1948 Dickey married Maxine Syerson and published his first poem, “The Shark in the Window,” in The Sewanee Review. In 1946, Dickey left the military to enroll at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, majoring in English and Philosophy with a minor in Astronomy. He had a very close relationship with his father, a lawyer whom Dickey referred to as “the grand old man of American cockfighting.” Dickey’s love of poetry did not truly develop until he was in the Air Force, where he flew more than 100 combat missions in the Philippines as a member of the 418th Night Fighter Squadron. His fascination with nature and exploring the beast within man became an essential part of his legacy.ĭickey was born in Buckhead, a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, to Eugene and Maibelle Dickey. A brilliant, eccentric, and complex man, James Dickey was not afraid to express his opinion and step outside the traditional creative boundaries of writing to explore new and unique forms.
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