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Academy of American Poets

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The Academy of American Poets is a national, member-supported organization that promotes poets and the art of poetry . The nonprofit organization was incorporated in the state of New York in 1934. It fosters the readership of poetry through outreach activities such as National Poetry Month , its website Poets.org, the syndicated series Poem-a-Day, American Poets magazine, readings and events, and poetry resources for K-12 educators. In addition, it sponsors a portfolio of nine major poetry awards, of which the first was a fellowship created in 1946 to support a poet and honor "distinguished achievement," and more than 200 prizes for student poets.

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63-533: In 1984, Robert Penn Warren noted that "To have great poets there must be great audiences, Whitman said, to the more or less unheeding ears of American educators. Ambitiously, hopefully, the Academy has undertaken to remedy this plight." In 1998, Dinitia Smith described the Academy of American Poets as "a venerable body at the symbolic center of the American poetry establishment." In 2013, Carolyn Forché described

126-642: A Bachelor of Arts degree in 1892. He met his wife, Florence Haskell Corliss, at the 1890 Harvard commencement. He started working under the city editor for the New York Tribune two days after he graduated from Harvard in 1892. He married Florence on October 31, 1895 in Englewood, New Jersey. He also worked for the Albany Evening Journal , Boston Advertiser , Boston Herald , and New York Tribune , which paid only $ 25, while he

189-648: A bequest established the Lamont Poetry Prize . Lamont died in Boca Grande, Florida , in 1948. In 1895, Lamont married Florence Haskell Corliss. Born Englewood, NJ in 1873, Florence graduated from Smith College in 1893 and received an M.A. in Philosophy from Columbia University. Thomas and Florence had 4 children. Their son Corliss was a philosophy professor at Columbia University and an avowed socialist . Another son, Thomas Stilwell Lamont,

252-652: A debt repayment moratorium in the 1931 financial crisis. This also has important implications for later events such as his 1932 election campaign. Lamont was elected to both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1932. Lamont later undertook a semiofficial mission to Japan in 1920 to protect American financial issues in Asia. However, he did not aggressively challenge Japanese efforts to build

315-608: A fellowship. In October 1928 he entered New College, Oxford , in England as a Rhodes Scholar and received his B.Litt. in the spring of 1930. He also received a Guggenheim Fellowship to study in Italy during the rule of Benito Mussolini . That same year he began his teaching career at Southwestern College (now Rhodes College ) in Memphis, Tennessee . While still an undergraduate at Vanderbilt University, Warren became associated with

378-683: A fortune, notably by funding the building of Lamont Library . At the end of World War II , Lamont made a very substantial donation toward restoring Canterbury Cathedral in England . His widow, Florence Haskell Corliss donated Torrey Cliff, their weekend residence overlooking the Hudson River in Palisades, New York , to Columbia University . It is now the site of the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory . Upon Florence's death,

441-701: A mission to the Allies, led by Edward M. House , as requested by President Woodrow Wilson . Lamont not only advised the other countries but also went to them. Right before he was going to go to Europe, the Bolsheviks took power in Russia. He and the head of the American Red Cross, William B. Thompson , along with the approval of the British prime minister, Lloyd George, tried to convince America to aid

504-564: A missionary" for Italian fascism , secured a $ 100 million loan for Benito Mussolini . Despite his early support, Lamont believed the Second Italo-Abyssinian War begun in 1935 was outrageous. On September 20, 1940, the fascist police shocked Lamont by arresting Giovanni Fummi, J.P. Morgan & Co. 's leading representative in Italy. Lamont worked to secure Fummi's release. Fummi was released on October 1 and went to Switzerland . On Black Thursday in 1929, Lamont

567-414: A permanent endowment, and the cash value of the prize is currently $ 25,000. The Academy of American Poets currently announces three judges for each year's competition in advance. There has been some criticism of the Academy's procedures for mitigating the judges' conflicts of interest, since the judges are often acquainted with some of the poets whose volumes are nominated. Named after poet Walt Whitman ,

630-768: A political rally designed to evoke the setting of All the King's Men . His son and daughter, Gabriel and Rosanna Warren , were in attendance. Vanderbilt University houses the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities, which is sponsored by the College of Arts and Science. It began its programs in January 1988, and in 1989 received a $ 480,000 Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for

693-582: A sphere of influence in Manchuria ; indeed, he supported Japan's non-militaristic politics until late into the 1930s. Ron Chernow won the National Book Award for his book The House of Morgan in which he claimed that Lamont had authored the infamous Japanese response to deceive the world about the Mukden incident , which was used as a pretext for Japan's invasion of Manchuria. That defied

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756-755: A straight $ 10,000 book price and a fellowship at the American Academy in Rome and $ 20,000 for use in advancing a "significant work-in-progress", such as through travel or study. The award is administered for the New York Community Trust and funded by a bequest from Sonia Raiziss Giop . Established in 2013, the Aliki Perroti and Seth Frank Most Promising Young Poet Award recognizes a student poet twenty-three years old or younger, with an annual cash prize of $ 1,000. Established in 2017,

819-676: A while. Several of the Award's recipients have subsequently won the highest honors given to mature poets. Donald Hall was named Poet Laureate of the United States in 2004. Donald Justice , Lisel Mueller , Philip Schultz , and Tracy K. Smith have each won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry . The Academy first began awarding annual $ 100 prizes to student poets at ten American universities and colleges in 1955. The program has since expanded to include more than 200 schools. According to

882-595: Is buried at Stratton, Vermont, and, at his request, a memorial marker is situated in the Warren family gravesite in Guthrie , Kentucky. In April 2005, the United States Postal Service issued a commemorative stamp to mark the 100th anniversary of Warren's birth. Introduced at the post office in his native Guthrie, it depicts the author as he appeared in a 1948 photograph, with a background scene of

945-438: The American Philosophical Society . Warren was co-author, with Cleanth Brooks , of Understanding Poetry , an influential literature textbook. It was followed by other similarly co-authored textbooks, including Understanding Fiction , which was praised by Southern Gothic and Roman Catholic writer Flannery O'Connor , and Modern Rhetoric , which adopted what can be called a New Critical perspective. His first marriage

1008-655: The Copernicus Award (from 1974 to 1977), the Edgar Award (from 1974 to 1977), and the Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award (from 1983 to 1994). Robert Penn Warren Robert Penn Warren (April 24, 1905 – September 15, 1989) was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism . He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers . He founded

1071-605: The Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History at the University of Kentucky. Warren's best-known work is All the King's Men , a novel that won the Pulitzer Prize in 1947. Main character Willie Stark resembles Huey Pierce Long (1893–1935), the radical populist governor of Louisiana whom Warren was able to observe closely while teaching at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge from 1933 to 1942. The 1949 film by

1134-718: The Saint Louis University Library Associates. In 1980, Warren was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter . In 1981, Warren was selected as a MacArthur Fellow and later was named as the first U.S. Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry on February 26, 1986. In 1987, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts . Warren was an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and

1197-574: The U.S. Naval Academy . That summer, he published in "The Messkit" his first poem "Prophecy." In the fall of 1921, at age 16, he entered Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, graduating in the summer of 1925 summa cum laude , Phi Beta Kappa , and Founder's Medalist. That fall, he entered the University of California, Berkeley , as a graduate student and teaching assistant, and upon receiving his M.A. in 1927, entered Yale University on

1260-402: The Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowships In 2019, the Academy of American Poets launched the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, which provides poets laureate from states, municipalities, and tribal nations around the United States with $ 50,000 to support the creation of new work, and enable them to undertake civic projects that enrich their communities. Past awards include

1323-461: The Academy of American Poets as "the most important organization in our country helping to keep poetry alive and in our culture." The Academy of American Poets was created in 1934 in New York City by 23-year-old Marie Bullock with a mission to "support American poets at all stages of their careers and to foster the appreciation of contemporary poetry." In 1936, the Academy of American Poets

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1386-451: The Academy of American Poets purchases one thousand copies of the winning book for distribution to its membership; the purchase and distribution essentially guarantee that the book becomes "a bestseller in the tiny poetry market." Edward Field has described the importance of receiving the Award to his career as follows: ... perhaps it is just as well that I didn't succeed in getting a publisher earlier, since, with new poems being added all

1449-582: The Academy's website Poets.org describes it as "the first of its kind in the United States." Formerly known as the Lamont Poetry Selection, the Laughlin Award is given in recognition of a poet's second published book, and is considered to be the only major award honoring the publication of a poet's second book. The award was first established in 1954 by a bequest from the wife of Thomas W. Lamont , who specified that it be used "for

1512-455: The Academy, most of these prizes are endowed in perpetuity, though some are funded through other arrangements with the school or through private donors. For a school to become part of the program, a $ 2,500 endowment contribution is required. Individual schools set the winning criteria for their awards, within the guidelines set by the Academy: winners must be registered students at the school and

1575-422: The Academy; for example, Florence Hamilton. As of 2018, the fifteen Chancellors of the Academy of American Poets are: Elizabeth Alexander , Ellen Bass , Marilyn Chin , Kwame Dawes , Forrest Gander , Linda Gregerson , Terrance Hayes , Brenda Hillman , Marie Howe , Khaled Mattawa , Marilyn Nelson , Alicia Ostriker , Claudia Rankine , Alberto Ríos , and David St. John . As of 2020, Michael Jacobs chair

1638-660: The Ambroggio Prize is the only annual award of its kind in the United States that honors American poets whose first language is Spanish. It is a $ 1,000 publication prize given for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. Luis Alberto Ambroggio sponsored the prize to "celebrate poets in the United States writing in Spanish as an important part of our rich American poetic tradition." Main Article: List of Winners of

1701-609: The Arts from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. Since its earliest days, the Academy of American Poets has been guided by an honorary Board of Chancellors composed of established and award-winning poets who serve as advisors to the organization and judge its largest prizes for poets. Past Chancellors include W. H. Auden , Elizabeth Bishop , Lucille Clifton , Robert Creeley , Marianne Moore , Mark Strand , and May Swenson . Women as well as men were founding poets of

1764-583: The Board of the Academy of American Poets. The Academy of American Poets administers several programs: National Poetry Month; the website Poets.org, which includes a curated collection of poems and essays about poetry, over 800 recordings and videos of poets dating back to the 1960s, and free materials for K-12 teachers, including lesson plans; the syndicated series, Poem-a-Day; and American Poets magazine. The organization also awards nine major prizes for poets, as well as 200 college awards sponsored at schools across

1827-554: The Bolsheviks so that Russia would stay in the war. However, they were unsuccessful. Both he and Norman H. Davis were appointed as representatives of the Treasury Department to the Paris Peace Conference and had to determine what Germany had to pay in reparations. He participated in the committees that drew up the 1924 Dawes Plan and the 1929 Young Plan to reduce the amount paid by Germany. In

1890-423: The Humanities . The Center promotes "interdisciplinary research and study in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences." The high school that Robert Penn Warren attended, Clarksville High School (Tennessee), was renovated into an apartment complex in 1982. The original name of the apartments was changed to The Penn Warren in 2010. In 2014 Vanderbilt University opened the doors to Warren College, one of

1953-522: The annual National Book Award for Poetry . In 1974, the National Endowment for the Humanities selected him for the Jefferson Lecture , the U.S. federal government's highest honor for achievement in the humanities . Warren's lecture was entitled "Poetry and Democracy" (subsequently published under the title Democracy and Poetry ). In 1977, Warren was awarded the St. Louis Literary Award from

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2016-733: The article as a small book titled Segregation: The Inner Conflict in the South . He subsequently adopted a high profile as a supporter of racial integration . In 1965, he published Who Speaks for the Negro? , a collection of interviews with black civil rights leaders including Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. , thus further distinguishing his political leanings from the more conservative philosophies associated with fellow Agrarians such as Tate, Cleanth Brooks , and particularly Davidson. Warren's interviews with civil rights leaders are at

2079-521: The arts and the cause of world peace"; Lenore Marshall, a poet, novelist, editor, and peace activist, had died in 1971. The Prize was initially administered by the Saturday Review magazine. Following the folding of Saturday Review , the Prize was administered by The Nation magazine. In 1995, administration of the Prize became the responsibility of the Academy of American Poets; the Prize has

2142-582: The award is based on a competition of book-length poetry manuscripts by American poets who have not yet published a book. It has been described as "a transformative honor that includes publication and distribution of the book though the Academy, $ 5,000 in cash and a residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation." The Library of Congress includes the Award among distinctions noted for poets, as does The New York Times , which also occasionally publishes articles about new awards. The award

2205-526: The award was established in 1994 by Dorothea Tanning to "recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry". Nominations are not accepted. The winner, who must be an American citizen, is chosen by the Academy of American Poets Board of Chancellors and receives $ 100,000. Established in 1995, the award seeks to recognize American translators for "outstanding translations into English of modern Italian poetry" that have been published through non-self-publication means. The prize alternates annually between

2268-545: The change, suggesting that publishing a second volume was becoming more difficult than publishing the first. In 1995, it was endowed by a gift from the Drue Heinz Trust, and it was renamed to honor James Laughlin , who founded the publishing house New Directions in 1936. At present, winners receive a cash prize of $ 5,000, an all-expenses-paid weeklong residency at The Betsy Hotel in Miami Beach, Florida, and

2331-658: The community of Penn's Store in Patrick County, Virginia , and she was a descendant of Revolutionary War soldier Colonel Abram Penn . After he had graduated from a private high school at age 15, his mother enrolled him in Clarksville High School in Clarksville, Tennessee for a year because she thought he was too young to go to college. In 1921 his left eye was removed as the result of an accident with his brother, which canceled his appointment to

2394-546: The country. In 1998, Fred Viebahn, husband of African-American poet Rita Dove , drew media attention to the lack of diversity on the Academy's Board of Chancellors; up until then, no poet of color had ever been elected to be a Chancellor, and only very few women. Subsequently, two female Chancellors, Maxine Kumin and Carolyn Kizer , resigned in protest. The Academy responded by instituting major changes and designating several new chancellors, including African-American poets Lucille Clifton and Yusef Komunyakaa . Elizabeth Kray

2457-505: The crash at prices premium to actual market value. Politicians, including Calvin Coolidge , and family members of prominent bankers, were on the list. Following the reorganization of J.P. Morgan & Co. in 1943, Lamont was elected chairman of the board of directors, after Morgan Jr. died, becoming the first non Morgan after George Peabody to chair the bank. Lamont became a generous benefactor of Harvard and Exeter once he had amassed

2520-436: The discovery and encouragement of new poetic genius." In 1959, Harvey Shapiro referred to the award as "roughly, a Pulitzer for bardlings." Initially, the Lamont Poetry Selection was awarded to a poet's first published book; copies of the book were purchased from its publisher for distribution to the Academy's members. In 1975, the organization changed to selecting a poet's second volume; in an editorial, Peter Davison welcomed

2583-592: The expressed position of US government and the League of Nations that Japan, not China, was the aggressor. Lamont was the chairman of the International Committee of Bankers on Mexico for which he successfully negotiated the De la Huerta-Lamont Treaty . He continued to chair the committee into the 1940s by a series of renegotiations of Mexico's foreign debt. In 1926, Lamont, self-described as "something like

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2646-463: The first 2 residential colleges at the university, along with Moore College. He was a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers . Thomas W. Lamont Thomas William Lamont Jr. (September 30, 1870 – February 2, 1948) was an American banker . Lamont was born in Claverack, New York . His parents were Thomas Lamont, a Methodist minister, and Caroline Deuel Jayne. Since his father

2709-533: The following Thursday. In an attempt to stop the panic, Lamont organized Wall Street firms to inject confidence back into the stock market through massive purchases of blue chip stocks. The effort failed, and stocks ultimately lost a quarter of their value that week. After the crash unfolded, the Senate Banking Committee found that J.P. Morgan (headed by Lamont), had maintained a "preferential stock list", to allow for liquidation of stocks during

2772-612: The group of poets there known as the Fugitives , and somewhat later, during the early 1930s, Warren and some of the same writers formed a group known as the Southern Agrarians . He contributed "The Briar Patch" to the Agrarian manifesto I'll Take My Stand along with 11 other Southern writers and poets (including fellow Vanderbilt poet/critics John Crowe Ransom , Allen Tate , and Donald Davidson ). In "The Briar Patch"

2835-723: The interwar period, he was a spokesman for J.P. Morgan because J.P. Morgan Jr. was retiring. He handled the press and defended the firm during hearings like those of Arsene Pujo that investigated powerful Wall Street bankers. He was one of the most important agents for the Morgan investments abroad. A member of the Council of Foreign Relations , he was an unofficial advisor to the Wilson, Herbert Hoover , and Franklin Roosevelt administrations. Hoover contacted Lamont about his proposal for

2898-654: The literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry. Warren was born in Guthrie, Kentucky , very near the Tennessee - Kentucky border, to Robert Warren and Anna Penn. Warren's mother's family had roots in Virginia, having given their name to

2961-420: The organization named its first Latino executive director and president, Ricardo Alberto Maldonado . Awards are listed in chronological order of their creation. One Academy Fellowship is awarded annually for "distinguished poetic achievement": Fellows are awarded a stipend which is presently $ 25,000. The Fellowship program was created in 1946, and was the first of the organization's current portfolio of awards;

3024-749: The same name was highly successful, starring Broderick Crawford and winning the Academy Award for Best Picture in 1949. There was another film adaptation in 2006 featuring Sean Penn as Willie Stark. The opera Willie Stark by Carlisle Floyd , to his own libretto based on the novel, was first performed in 1981. Warren served as the Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress , 1944–1945 (later termed Poet Laureate ), and won two Pulitzer Prizes in poetry, in 1958 for Promises: Poems 1954–1956 and in 1979 for Now and Then . Promises also won

3087-423: The school cannot restrict the themes or styles of the entries. The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize is awarded annually for the best volume of poetry written by a living U.S. citizen and published in the previous year in the United States. The Prize was created in 1975 by the New Hope Foundation of Pennsylvania, which was a philanthropic foundation created by Lenore Marshall and her husband, James Marshall, to "support

3150-424: The time, the manuscript kept getting stronger. But years of rejection took their toll, and when I won the Lamont Award in 1962, I kept repeating "I will not be consoled." But I was. My life changed considerably. For one thing, I could make a living - I gave poetry readings around the country, wrote narrations for a couple of documentary films, translated a book of Eskimo poems, and, yes, even taught poetry workshops for

3213-411: The winning manuscript. The Academy purchases and distributes copies to its members, along with copies of the winning volume for the James Laughlin Award. This $ 1,000 award recognizes a poetry collection translated from any language into English and published in the previous calendar year. Established in 1976, it is given annually. A noted translator chooses the winning book. Named for Wallace Stevens ,

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3276-464: The young Warren defends racial segregation, in line with the political leanings of the Agrarian group, although Davidson deemed Warren's stances in the essay so progressive that he argued for excluding it from the collection. However, Warren recanted these views in an article on the civil rights movement , "Divided South Searches Its Soul", which appeared in the July 9, 1956 issue of Life magazine. A month later, Warren published an expanded version of

3339-448: Was a minister, they moved around Upstate New York a lot and they were not very wealthy. He graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy in 1888, where he was editor of the school newspaper, The Exonian , as well as the school yearbook and literary magazine. He then attended Harvard College . At Harvard, he became first freshman editor of The Harvard Crimson , which helped him pay off some of his tuition. He graduated cum laude with

3402-422: Was acting head of J.P. Morgan & Co. Five days prior to the Crash, President Herbert Hoover had contacted Lamont with concerns about the rampant market manipulation by Wall Street insiders, and the systemic risk it presented to the stock market. Lamont reassured the President that there was no cause for concern, and no need for government intervention, saying "The future appears brilliant!" The market crashed

3465-440: Was an advertising agency that worked for food corporations. The company was in a bad financial status, but Lamont fixed it, and the company changed its name to Lamont, Corliss, and Company. He was partners with his brother-in-law, Corliss. His banking caught the attention of banker Henry P. Davison, who asked Thomas to join the new Bankers Trust . He started as secretary and treasurer and then moved up to being Vice President and then

3528-407: Was at Harvard. At the Tribune , he received many promotions, including night editor and helping the financial editor, which gave him his first taste of the financial world. He left journalism because of the low pay and went into business. He began working in business for Cushman Bros., which later became Lamont, Corliss, and Company, and turned it into a successful importing and marketing firm. It

3591-414: Was established in 1975. In a New York Times opinion piece from 1985, the novelist John Barth noted that 1475 manuscripts had been entered into one of the Whitman Award competitions, which exceeded the number of subscribers to some poetry journals. From 1992 to 2014, Louisiana State University Press published each volume as part of its "Walt Whitman Award Series" Beginning 2015, Graywolf Press published

3654-402: Was headed by the paper's editor, Edwin F. Gay . On January 1, 1911, he became a partner of J.P. Morgan & Co. , following Davison to the company. The company had also started an improvised system so that the Allies could buy supplies from them. In 1917, he joined the Liberty Loan Committee, which helped the treasury sell war bonds to Americans. He also served unofficially as an advisor to

3717-411: Was hired in 1963 as the first executive director of the Academy of American Poets, and she served the organization until 1981. William Wadsworth served as executive director from 1989 to 2001. In January 2020 the Academy received a grant of $ 4.5 million from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation , in addition to the $ 2.2 million provided in 2019. The money will be used for the poet laureate program. In 2023,

3780-466: Was later vice-chairman of Morgan Guaranty Trust and a fellow of the Harvard Corporation . One of his grandsons, Lansing Lamont , was a reporter with Time from 1961 to 1974. He published several books, including You Must Remember This: A Reporter’s Odyssey from Camelot to Glasnost about his experiences covering the important events of the time, including the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy . Another grandson, Thomas William Lamont II, served in

3843-426: Was officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization . Marie Bullock was the president of the Academy of American Poets for the next half a century, running the organization out of her apartment for thirty of those years. In 1982, Marie Bullock received a Mayor's Award of Honor for Arts and Culture. She also had received the Gold Medal of the National Institute of Social Sciences, the Award for Distinguished Service to

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3906-406: Was promoted to director. He rose to the vice presidency of the First National Bank. He was a member of the Jekyll Island Club on Jekyll Island, Georgia . In 1918, he purchased the New York Evening Post , of which his brother, Hammond, had been managing editor a decade earlier, from Oswald Garrison Villard . After failing to make a profit, he sold the paper in January, 1922 to a syndicate that

3969-477: Was to Emma Brescia. His second marriage was in 1952 to Eleanor Clark , with whom he had two children, Rosanna Phelps Warren (born 1953) and Gabriel Penn Warren (born 1955). During his tenure at Louisiana State University he resided at Twin Oaks (otherwise known as the Robert Penn Warren House ) in Prairieville, Louisiana. He lived the latter part of his life in Fairfield, Connecticut , and Stratton, Vermont , where he died of complications from prostate cancer. He

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