J.D. McClatchy, the acclaimed author of eight collections of poetry, died of cancer on April 10 in his Manhattan home, according to Random House. Mr. McClatchy was 72.

McClatchy’s longtime editor, Deborah Garrison, said: “He was the most admirable of poets because he combined formal discipline with a refusal to be formal in the subjects he treated – all was fair game, as he examined the hazardous materials of the body, the heart, and our troubling desires and needs. He was exacting in contemplating our failures, but he loved their aftermath, which he studied with that keen poet’s awareness that we could be better, do better, and that beautiful things (the opera, good poems, dear friends) were our worthiest refuge. His life, too, was lived with precise purpose, and a breezy cheerfulness about the messiness of it all. … His part in shepherding multiple volumes of James Merrill’s collected writings will remain a high point for me personally, as he taught me how to properly honor the poets we love, and how we can grow by inhabiting their work more deeply over time. This will be true for all of us when it comes to McClatchy’s splendid poems, which will continue to reward and surprise us when we need them most.”

In addition to his many volumes of poetry, Mr. McClatchy penned a number of well-received opera librettos, including ones for Ned Rorem’s “Our Town” and Mozart’s “Magic Flute,” and was also a renowned editor, critic, anthologist, and translator. “Probably no American poet-critic since Randall Jarrell has written such beautiful prose or wielded such manifold and supple terms of analysis,” said critic and novelist Edmund White. “McClatchy analyzes poetry as only a poet could, with an insider’s knowledge of the craft.”

J.D. McClatchy’s work has received a number of accolades, including the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, fellowships from the Guggenheim and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as two Lambda Literary Awards. He served as Chancellor to the Academy of American Poets from 1996 to 2003, and taught at Princeton University, Columbia University, Johns Hopkins University, and Yale University, where he also edited The Yale Review.

Mr. McClatchy is survived by his husband, noted book-jacket designer Chip Kidd, and his three sisters, Edythe Pahl, Joan Brennan, and Elizabeth Davis.

Image Credit: The Poetry Foundation