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Ciardi was born in Boston's Little Italy. He attended Bates College, Tufts College and the University of Michigan. After serving in the Army Air Corps during World War II, he taught at the University of Kansas CityThe University of Missouri-Kansas City (abbreviated UMKC is an institution of higher learning located in Kansas City, Missouri. The university got its start as a private, independent university in 1933, and was originally known as the University of Kansas, HarvardHarvard University is a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and a member of the Ivy League. It was founded on September 8, 1636 by a vote of the Great and General Court of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, making it the oldest post-secondary s, and finally at RutgersRutgers, The State University of New Jersey is located in New Brunswick, Piscataway, Camden and Newark, New Jersey. Considered a highly prestigious university, Rutgers offers more than 100 distinct bachelor's, 100 master's, and 80 doctoral and professiona. In 1961, he left his tenureTenure commonly refers to academic tenure systems in which professors (at the university level)—and in some jurisdictions schoolteachers (at primary or secondary school levels)—are granted the right not to be fired without cause after an initial probationd position for an independent career.
Ciardi was well known for his poetry for adults and children and his English translations of Dante AlighieriDante Alighieri (May/June 1265 September 13/14, 1321) was a Florentine poet. His greatest work, La divina commedia The Divine Comedy , is a culminating statement of the medieval world view and the basis of the modern Italian language. Life Early life and's great works. He worked with Isaac AsimovIsaac Asimov (c. January 2, 1920 April 6, 1992) was a Russian-born American author and biochemist, a highly successful and exceptionally prolific writer best known for his works of science fiction and for his science books for the lay person. He also wrot on collections of limericksThis article is about the poetic form. For other uses of the name, see Limerick (disambiguation). A limerick is a short, often humorous and ribald poem developed to a very specific structure. Structure The rhyme scheme is usually aabba, with a rather rigi.
As an etymologist, he is known for a three-volume Browser's Dictionary and his broadcasts on National Public RadioFor other meanings of NPR see NPR (disambiguation National Public Radio NPR is a private, not-for-profit corporation that sells programming to member radio stations; together they are a loosely organized public radio network in the United States. NPR was, both as host of A Word in Your Ear and as a commentator for Morning Edition and Weekend Edition. Etymologies and commentary on words such as daisy, demijohn, jimmies (the sprinkles on doughnuts and ice cream), gerrymander, glitch, snafu, cretin, and baseball, among others, are available from the archives of NPR's website.
He died on Easter Sunday, 1986 of a heart attack in New Jersey, but not before composing his own epitaph:
Here, time concurring (and it does);
Lies Ciardi. If no kingdom come,
A kingdom was. Such as it was
This one beside it is a slum.
A partial bibliography: