Irving Weiss

Bio

Irving Weiss was born in the Bronx, New York, and attended public schools in Brooklyn, New York. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Michigan in 1942 and then served 1942-1945 in the 95th Infantry Division in Europe. After receiving his Master of Arts in Comparative Literature from Columbia University in 1947, he and his late wife and frequent collaborator, Anne de la Vergne Weiss, lived in Italy, where he taught at an American Dependents School in Naples. He was humanities editor of the Funk and Wagnalls Standard Reference Encyclopedia, taught at Pennsylvania State University and The Fashion Institute of Technology, and retired as Professor Emeritus of English from The State University of New York College at New Paltz, where he taught courses in Writing and Publication, among others. He has published poetry, including visual poetry, as well as translations, stories, and essays in numerous magazines, in print and online. His books include American Authors and Books, 1640 to the Present Day; Reflections on Childhood; selective translations from Malcolm de Chazal’s Sens-Plastique (preface, W.H. Auden); and Visual Voices: The Poem As a Print Object, the ms. of the last purchased by the Ruth and Marvin E. Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry, selections from which were most recently included in The Last Word exhibition at The Neuberger Museum, Purchase, New York. He has just finished a complete translation of Sens-Plastique for Sun and Moon Press. He now lives in Dix Hills, New York, and frequently visits two of his children in New York State.