David Ignatow was born in
Brooklyn, New York on February 7, 1914, and spent most of his life in the New York City area. His parents were
Jewish immigrants from Austria-Hungary and Ukraine. He died on November 17, 1997, aged 83, at his home in
East Hampton, New York. His papers are held at
University of California, San Diego. Ignatow began his professional career as a businessman. After committing wholly to poetry, Ignatow worked as an editor of, among other periodicals, the
American Poetry Review and the
Beloit Poetry Journal, and as poetry editor of
The Nation. He taught at the
New School for Social Research, the
University of Kentucky, the
University of Kansas,
Vassar College,
York College (CUNY),
New York University, and
Columbia University. He was president of the
Poetry Society of America from 1980 to 1984 and poet-in-residence at the
Walt Whitman Birthplace Association in 1987. ==Awards==