Untermeyer, Jean Starr, 1886-1970

Epithet: poet

American poet.

Jean Starr Untermeyer, poet and wife of poet Louis Untermeyer, was born in 1886 in Zanesville, Ohio. Growing Pains, her first poetry collection, was published in 1918. In 1927, she began work as a translater. She translated Hermann Broch's Death of Virgil (1945). Her major poetry collections include Dreams Out of Darkness (1921), Steep Ascent (1927), The Winged Child (1936), and Love and Need (1940). Private Collections, her autobiography, was published in 1965. She died in New York City in July, 1970.

Jean Starr Untermeyer, wife of Louis Untermeyer, was a writer and educator. Her husband encouraged her to publish the poems she had been writing in secret, and she ultimately published several volumes of collected verse. She also published translations, articles, book reviews, and an autobiography. She lectured at the New School for Social Research, and taught at Olivet College.

Jean Starr Untermeyer, poet and former wife of the poet Louis Untermeyer, was born in 1886 in Zanesville, Ohio, to Abram E. and Johanna S. Starr. She attended Columbia University but broke off her studies there in 1907 to marry Louis Untermeyer. Later she envisioned a career as a singer of lieder, debuting in Vienna in 1924, but eventually discontinued that pursuit.

Upon discovering that she had been writing poems secretly for years, her husband encouraged her and submitted her works to magazines. Growing Pains, her first volume of poetry, was published by B. W. Huebsch in 1918. In 1925, the Untermeyers were divorced. They later remarried but were again divorced in 1951. Their only son Richard died while a sophomore at Yale University in 1927.

The following year Untermeyer began work as a translator. Her major effort in this genre was Hermann Broch's The Death of Virgil (1945). She and Broch met at Yaddo in 1939 and remained intimate friends until Broch's death in 1951.

Untermeyer wrote a number of book reviews for The Saturday Review, The New York Times, and other publications. She taught at writers's conferences at Olivet College in Michigan in the 1930s and lectured at The New School for Social Research from 1948 to 1951. Her major poetry collections include Dreams Out of Darkness (1921), Steep Ascent (1927), The Winged Child (1936), and Love and Need (1940). Private Collections, her autobiography, was published in 1965.

Jean Starr Untermeyer died in New York City in July 1970.