18 Facts About James Dickey

James Lafayette Dickey was an American poet, novelist, critic, and lecturer.

James Dickey was appointed the 18th United States Poet Laureate in 1966.

James Dickey was previously a decorated veteran of the Second World War and the Korean War, as a pilot in the United States Air Force's 418th Night Fighter Squadron.

James Dickey was born to lawyer Eugene James Dickey and Maibelle Swift in Atlanta, Georgia, where he attended North Fulton High School in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood.

James Dickey later served in the US Air Force during the Korean War.

James Dickey taught as an instructor of English at Rice University in Houston, Texas in 1950 and following his second Air Force stint, from 1952 to 1954, James Dickey returned to academic teaching.

James Dickey then quit his teaching job at the University of Florida in the spring of 1956 after a group of the American Pen's Women's Society protested his reading of the poem called The Father's Body; he quit rather than apologize.

James Dickey wrote the poem The Moon Ground for Life magazine in celebration of the Apollo 11 Moon landing.

James Dickey's reading of it was broadcast on ABC television on July 20,1969.

James Dickey's popularity exploded after the film version of his novel Deliverance was released in 1972.

James Dickey wrote the screenplay and had a cameo in the film as a sheriff.

On January 20,1977, James Dickey was invited to read his poem The Strength of Fields at the inauguration of Jimmy Carter.

In November 1948 James Dickey married Maxine Syerson, and three years later they had their first son, Christopher; a second son, Kevin, was born in 1958.

Christopher James Dickey was a novelist and journalist, providing coverage from the Middle East for Newsweek.

Kevin James Dickey is an interventional radiologist and lives in Winston-Salem, NC.

Two months after Maxine died in 1976, James Dickey married one of his students, Deborah Dodson.

James Dickey died on January 19,1997, aged 73, six days after his last class at the University of South Carolina, where from 1968 he taught as poet in residence.

James Dickey spent his last years in and out of hospitals, afflicted with severe alcoholism, jaundice and later pulmonary fibrosis.