Robert Mezey

Who is Robert Mezey?

Robert Mezey is an American poet, critic and academic. He is also a noted translator, in particular from Spanish, having translated with Richard Barnes the collected poems of Borges.

He was born in Philadelphia, and attended Kenyon College as a contemporary of E. L. Doctorow and James Wright; after a time and serving in the army he finished in 1959 an undergraduate degree at the University of Iowa. Having worked for a while, he became a graduate student at Stanford University. Then he began teaching at Case Western Reserve University, in 1963. During a year at Franklin and Marshall College he was for a time suspended after an accusation of inciting students to burn draft cards. After holding other positions, he settled at 1976 at Pomona College, until retiring in 1999.

He has received numerous awards including the 2002 Poets' Prize for Collected Poems: 1952-1999.