Robert Bly '50 is an unassuming literary revolutionary.

Bly, as an Advocate member during his Harvard years, socialized and philosophized with current and future poetic giants.

But instead of immediately becoming a poetic icon, he toiled in anonymity for over 17 years, before seeing the light of the literary landscape.

And in the years since then he hardly followed the traditional literary high road.

He is spiritual--he says he believes his best work focuses on an obscure 13th century religious poet. He is passionate--he learned Spanish to read Pablo Neruda in his native language. And he is, for lack of a better word, simply odd. He plays cymbals during poetry readings. He wears bright multi-colored vests. He has lead groups of men into the woods for 10 days to get 'in touch' with their emotions.

But, ultimately, Bly, who originally worshipped William Butler Yeats, remains one of the top poetic talents of the last half century exactly because he does not mimic a past master or brainstorm with a fellow Harvard literary acquaintance--he lives and writes to a world of his own rhythm.

A Community of Poets

Before transferring to Harvard as a sophomore, Bly served in the Navy from 1944 to 1946 and then spent a year at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.

At Harvard, he says he found himself in a group of classmates with astonishing literary talent, including John Ashbery '49, Kenneth Coch '48 , George Plimpton '48 and Adrienne Rich '51, who turned to be the first person Bly asked to a Radcliffe dance.

"It was an intense class," he says. "Many of us had incredible, complicated experiences before coming to school, and we brought those experiences with us."

Many of Bly's classmates were World War II veterans whose memories of the war fueled their artistic creativity, Bly says.

Bly says his two years in the Navy allowed him to mature, leading him to take better take advantage of the opportunities Harvard had to offer.

"People are too young to go to college directly after high school. They waste the first two years," he says. "I always told my kids to do something else for a couple of years--to travel around the world, to become a painter. It's a wonderful thing to be able to do."

Once Bly entered Harvard, his experiences were shaped by the lingering effects of the war.

"After all the destruction of the war, we felt it was our job to keep the standards of literature up," he says. "[And] after winning the war, we felt as though it was up to us to keep the culture together, and it was possible."

Yet, this was never too imposing a responsibility.