Robert Peter Tristram Coffin (March 18, 1892 – January 20, 1955) was an American poet, educator, writer, editor and literary critic. Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1936, he was the poetry editor for Yankee magazine.

Early life

Born Robert Peter Coffin, the youngest of ten children to James William Coffin, a descendant of Tristram Coffin and Alice Mary Coombs on a saltwater farm on Sebascodegan Island he earned his undergraduate degree from Bowdoin College in 1913 and then his Masters of Arts from Princeton University in 1918. In 1922 Coffin was awarded the degree of Doctor of Literature by Trinity College, Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1936.

Career

Coffin served with the US Army in World War I. When he returned he taught English at Wells Preschool and then as the Pierce Professor at Bowdoin College. Modeled after his friend and fellow poet Robert Frost's Bread Loaf Writers' Conference, Coffin was the co-founder with Carroll Towle of the Writers' Conference of the University of New Hampshire in 1956. Coffin also illustrated many of his books. Coffin died of a heart attack in Harpswell, Maine, on January 20, 1955, at the age of 62. He is buried in the Cranberry Horn Cemetery in Harpswell.

Partial bibliography

Non-fiction

Fiction and poetry

Sources