Minnesota poet, translator, and activist Robert Bly passed away on November 21, 2021, at the age of 94. Throughout the course of his long and distinguished career, he authored a wealth of poetry collections and nonfiction books, edited several anthologies, and translated numerous works into English from German, Norwegian, Spanish, Swedish, Persian, and Urdu.

Bly cofounded American Writers Against the Vietnam War in 1966, and his fiercely antiwar poetry collection The Light Around the Body won a National Book Award in 1968. One of his most famous works, the 1990 book Iron Men: A Book about Men, is credited with providing much of the foundation of the mythopoetic men’s movement. Bly was the University Minnesota Library’s 2002 Distinguished Writer and was named Minnesota’s first poet laureate in 2008. In 2013, the Poetry Society of America awarded him the lifetime achievement Robert Frost Medal.

AWP joins the literary community in mourning Bly’s passing and remembering his many contributions.