Arnold Kenseth papers

Arnold M. Kenseth was born on December 19, 1915 in Milton, Massachusetts. He graduated from Bates College in 1937 with a degree in English. From 1938 to 1941 he worked at Harvard University as curator of the Harvard College Library Poetry Room. There, he cared for the Edwin Arlington Robinson collection and the Amy Lowell collection. Intending to write on the relationship between poetry and religion, he met the Rev. Samuel H. Miller, who later became dean of Harvard Divinity School. It was Miller who interested Kenseth in the ministry. Kenseth received a bachelor's of sacred theology in 1944 and a master's in English in 1950 from Harvard. He initially served as minister at the Union Congregational Church in Ballardvale, Massachusetts (1943-1947) and then as the minister of South Congregational Church in Amherst, Massachusetts for 40 years. He also taught English at University of Massachusetts at Amherst and served as the school's chaplain. Along with Robert Frost, e.e. cummings, Archibald MacLeish, Wallace Stevens, Richard Wilbur and John Ciardi '38, he was audiotaped for the program New England Anthology by the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. Kenseth received first prize in the American Scholar Poetry Awards for his poem, "Death and Resurrection." His poetry was published in all the major poetry journals and many major magazines. He published nine books of his poems, the last in 2002. In 1965, he was charged by the National Committee on Worship of the United Church of Christ to rewrite and revise church liturgies. He translated Pablo Neruda's first book of poetry, Crepuscalario. He was a founder and board member of the Hampshire Committee on Civil Rights (1950-1970), and chair of the UNICEF drive (1952-1977) in Amherst. With his wife Betty J. Amey, whom he married in August 1940, Kenseth had three children: Elaine, Geoffrey, and Evan. Betty died in 2001, and Arnold Kenseth passed away on March 21, 2003.