Samuel French Morse
Samuel French Morse (1916–1985) was an American poet and teacher. The Samuel French Morse Poetry Prize from 1983–2009, was for a first or second book of poems by a U.S. poet, a $1000 cash award, and publication of the winning manuscript by Northeastern University Press/UPNE.

Life
Samuel French Morse was born in Salem, Massachusetts. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1936 and from Harvard University in 1938, and from Boston University in 1952.

From 1962 until 1985, he taught at Northeastern University.

He married Jane, and they summered at Hancock, Maine. His first book, Time of Year, had a preface by Wallace Stevens.

Awards
He won the Emily Clark Balch and the Arthur Davison Ficke prizes for poetry.

Works

Poetry

Criticism

Biography

Reviews
Mr. Morse doesn't answer these questions. Probably, they can't be answered, like "Is my thought a memory, not alive?" or "Is the spot on the floor, there, wine or blood/And whichever it may be, is it mine?" But his book does belong on that short, distinguished shelf including the collected poems, Holly Stevens's Letters of Wallace Stevens and Helen Hennessy Vendler's On Extended Wings: Wallace Stevens' Longer Poems. And, who knows, maybe "They will get it straight one day at the Sorbonne./We shall return at twilight from the lecture/Pleased that the irrational is rational. . ." And Wallace Stevens "will have stopped revolving except in crystal." I hope not.

References

1916 births
1985 deaths
Writers from Salem, Massachusetts
Dartmouth College alumni
Harvard University alumni
Boston University alumni
Northeastern University faculty
20th-century American poets
People from Hancock, Maine