On this day in 1943 Robert Lowell went to jail for draft evasion. The twenty-six-year-old Lowell was barely published at this point, but because he came from a venerated Boston family -- one with Mayflower roots, and distinguished military leaders -- the event made headline news. Looking back, Lowell would describe his stand as "the most decisive thing I ever did, just as a writer"; he would also turn the memory into a centerpiece poem in Life Studies, the 1959 collection regarded by many as the most important book of American poetry in the second half of the twentieth century ... FULL STORY »
