Lowell House is one of the twelve undergraduate residential houses within Harvard College, located on Holyoke Place facing Mount Auburn Street between the Harvard Yard and the Charles River. It is officially named for the Lowell family but an ornate ''ALL'' woven into the ironwork above the main gate discreetly alludes to Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Harvard's president at the time of construction. Its majestic neo-Georgian design, centered on two landscaped courtyards, received the 1938 Harleston Parker Medal and might be considered the model for later Harvard houses nearby. Lowell House is simultaneously close to the Yard, Harvard Square, and other Harvard "River" houses, and its blue-capped belltower, visible for many miles, is a local landmark.

History and traditions

Lowell was one of the first Houses built in realization of President Lowell's long-held dream of providing on-campus accommodations for every Harvard College student throughout his entire career in the College. (''See Harvard College house system.'') Its first Master was Mathematics Department chairman Julian Lowell Coolidge, who also instituted Monday-night High Table. Historian Elliott Perkins was the first to hold the position of Resident Dean (until recently known as the ''Allston Burr Senior Tutor'') then was Master from 1942 to 1963. Classicist Zeph Stewart was the third Master, and William and Mary Lee Bossert served from 1975 to 1998. Current co-Masters Diana Eck and Dorothy Austin are thus only the fifth Masters in Lowell's 80 years. Lowell's sister college at Yale University is Pierson College.

House traditions include Masters' Tea on Thursday afternoons, a May Day Waltz at dawn on the Weeks Footbridge, High Table, and the annual Lowell House Opera mounted in the dining hall. Springtime brings the Bacchanalia Formal, often with a live swing band in the courtyard.

Each ArtsFirst weekend, the first weekend in May, there is a courtyard performance of the 1812 Overture, during which those not part of the official orchestral ensemble are encouraged to assist on kazoos; in lieu of cannon, hydrogen-filled balloons are ignited by the House chemistry tutor; and until recently (see below) the performance would climax with the role originally scored by Tchaikovsky for authentic Russian zvon (a set of bells similar to a carillon), being played (appropriately enough) by Lowell's own authentic Russian zvon.

There is a winter holiday dinner, and various sophomore, senior, Roundtable and faculty dinners take place throughout the year. Language tables and special-interest tables are common features of everyday lunches and dinners. Many House events are organized by Lowell's "House Committee" of elected undergraduates.

Lowell House was the residence of Silas (Method Man) and Jamal (Redman) in the 2001 stoner comedy How High.

Architecture

Designed by the firm of Coolidge Shepley Bulfinch and Abbott and constructed in 1930 for $3,620,000, the House was named for the prominent Lowell family, closely identified with Harvard since John Lowell graduated in 1721. President Abbott Lawrence Lowell (1909–1933) instituted the House system, tutorials, the concentration system and reading period. His bust, and that of poet James Russell Lowell, are featured in the main courtyard. In the Dining Hall are portraits of President Lowell and his wife; his sister, poet Amy Lowell; his brother. astronomer Percival Lowell; and his grandfather John Amory Lowell.

Prior to the transition to complete randomization of Housing assignments in the spring of 1996, Harvard students were often placed into Houses with certain characters. Lowell House's location, picturesque courtyard, elegant dining hall, and historic traditions are often cited as reasons for its popularity among freshmen and upperclassmen. Lowell also boasts the coveted "Labyrinth," an eight-man room (nine if juniors choose to occupy it) with several exceptionally large singles and a sizable common room.

The Lowell House arms are those of the Lowell family, blazoned: Shield: sable, a dexter hand couped at the wrist grasping three darts, one in pale and two in saltire, all in argent. Crest: a stag's head cabossed, between the attires a pheon azure. Motto: ''Occasionem Cognosce.'' (In more prosaic terms: A shield with black field displaying a right hand cut off at the wrist and grasping three arrows, one vertical and two crossed diagonally, in silver. Above, a male deer's head mounted behind the ear, and between its antlers a barbed, broad arrowhead in blue. The motto means "Recognize the opportunity.") The house colors are blue and white.

The Lowell House Bells

For three-quarters of a century, the pride of Lowell House had been its authentic Russian zvon— one of the few complete sets of pre-revolutionary Russian bells surviving anywhere — hanging in the House's signature belltower. Eighteen bells were bought in Russia around 1930 by Thomas Whittemore with the financial aid of millionaire Chicago plumbing industrialist Charles R. Crane — who reportedly paid merely their value as scrap — just as they were to be melted down by Soviet authorities. Crane donated them to Harvard in 1930 just as plans for Lowell House were nearing completion.

Like those seen today on Dunster and Eliot Houses, Lowell's tower was originally meant to be a ''clock''-tower — Lowell's in particular is reminiscent of Philadelphia's Independence Hall, although it was actually modeled after a Dutch church. With word of Crane's gift, the planned tower was changed to the blue-capped belltower seen today. (One of the eighteen bells did not harmonize with the others; it was hung in the Harvard Business School's Baker Library.)

The bells originally hung in Moscow's Danilov Monastery (now the seat of the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church) and were installed with the help, at first, of musician Konstantin Konstantinovich Saradzhev, and Vsevolod Andronoff, a former resident of the monastery They range in weight from 22 pounds (10 kg) to 26,700 pounds (12,100 kg, and known to Lowell House students as "Mother Earth"). The bells are consecrated, and are of great significance to the Russian Orthodox Church, in the liturgy of which bells play an important role.

At Lowell, the bells were usually rung on Sundays at 1pm by resident ''Klappermeisters.'' After the annual Harvard-Yale football game, Harvard's score would sometimes be proclaimed on the ''Mother Earth,'' with Yale's score tolled on the ''Bell of Pestilence, Famine, and Despair.''

With the reopening of the Danilov Monastery, it was suggested that the bells be returned to their original home. At Harvard's June 2008 Commencement they sounded for the last time at Lowell House, after which the belltower was partially dismantled so that the bells could be withdrawn. In their place were hung newly cast near-replica bells obtained with the financial assistance of the Link of Times Foundation, created by Russian industrialist Victor Vekselberg.

The now-departed bells may still be heard on the Lowell House Virtual Bell Tower. The new bells can be heard every Sunday from 1-1:30pm, and visitors are welcome to visit the tower.

Notable alumni

Notable former residents and alumni of Lowell House include:

John Berendt, American author (Room M31)

Harry Blackmun, Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Room C12)

Michael Crichton, American author and producer (Room D42)

Matt Damon, actor and philanthropist (Room M42)

Philip F. Gura, American literature scholar (Room J11)

Walter Isaacson, magazine editor and foundation president (Room K22)

Nicholas Kristof, journalist (Room B24)

Ned Lamont of the notable Lamont family (Room C21)

Vanessa Lann, composer and pianist (Room N35)

Tom Lehrer, singer-songwriter (Room R13)

Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist and librettist (Room D41)

Robert Lowell, sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress (Room L12)

Anthony Lewis, intellectual and former columnist for ''The New York Times'' (Room O21)

Crown Princess Masako, wife of Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan (Room E11)

Natalie Portman, Academy Award Winner actress (Room I43)

Frank Rich, columnist for The New York Times (Room O34)

Christian Wolff, composer (Room B24)

David Souter, Justice of the United States Supreme Court (Room C32)

John Updike, novelist, poet, and literary critic (Room K22)

David Vitter, Republican Senator from Louisiana (Room M41)

Chris Wallace, journalist (Room J32)

Andrew Weil, author and physician (Room D14)

References

External links

Lowell House

Lowell House Committee

Lowell House Opera, established in 1938, New England's oldest opera company

Category:Harvard University Category:Harvard Houses Category:University and college dormitories in the United States

Coordinates	38°37′38″N90°11′52″N
Name	Jeremy Lin
Position	Point guard
Team	Golden State Warriors
Number	7
Career start	2010
Height ft	6
Height in	3
Weight lb	200
Birth date	August 23, 1988
Birth place
Nationality	American
High school	Palo Alto
College	Harvard (2006-2010)
Draft year	2010
Years1	–present |team1Golden State Warriors
Years2	2010–2011 |team2→Reno Bighorns (D-League)
Highlights	2× All-Ivy League First Team (2009–2010) All-Ivy League Second Team (2008) CIF Division II champion (2006) 2× SCVAL MVP (2005–2006) }}

)}} Jeremy Shu-How Lin () (born August 23, 1988) is an American professional basketball player for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). After receiving no athletic scholarship offers out of high school and being undrafted out of college, the Harvard University graduate reached a partially-guaranteed contract deal with his hometown Warriors. Lin is the first American player in the NBA to be of Chinese or of Taiwanese descent.

High school career

In his senior year in 2005–2006, Lin captained Palo Alto High School to a 32–1 record and upset nationally ranked Mater Dei, 51–47, for the California Interscholastic Federation (CIF) Division II state title. According to Dana O'Neil of ESPN, "... Lin was the runaway choice for player of the year by virtually every California publication." He was named first-team All-State and Northern California Division II Player of the Year ending his senior year averaging 15.1 points, 7.1 assists, 6.2 rebounds and 5.0 steals.

College career

Recruiting process

Lin sent his resume and a DVD of highlights to all the Ivy League schools, Cal, Stanford, and his dream school, UCLA. The Pac-10 schools wanted him to walk-on. Harvard and Brown were the only teams that guaranteed him a spot on their basketball teams, but Ivy League schools do not offer athletic scholarships. Lin chose to attend Harvard.

Joe Lacob, incoming Warriors' owner and Stanford booster, said Stanford's failure to recruit Lin "was really stupid. The kid was right across the street. You can’t recognize that, [then] you've got a problem."

Kerry Keating, the UCLA assistant who offered Lin the opportunity to walk-on, would say in hindsight that Lin would probably have ended up starting at point guard for UCLA.

Rex Walters, University of San Francisco men's basketball coach and a retired NBA player, said NCAA limits on coaches’ recruiting visits impacted Lin. “Most colleges start recruiting a guy in the first five minutes they see him because he runs really fast, jumps really high, does the quick, easy thing to evaluate," Walters said. Lin added, “I just think in order for someone to understand my game, they have to watch me more than once, because I’m not going to do anything that’s extra flashy or freakishly athletic."

Bill Holden, Harvard assistant coach, had initially told Lin's high school coach, Peter Diepenbrock, that Harvard was not interested in Lin. "Three weeks later, he calls me and says, 'I may have spoken a little too soon,'" Diepenbrock said.

Harvard

In his sophomore season (2007–08), Lin averaged 12.6 points and was named All-Ivy League Second Team.

By his junior year during the 2008–09 season, he was the only NCAA Division I men's basketball player who ranked in the top ten in his conference for scoring (17.8), rebounding (5.5), assists (4.3), steals (2.4), blocked shots (0.6), field goal percentage (0.502), free throw percentage (0.744), and 3 point shot percentage (0.400), and was a consensus selection for All-Ivy League First Team. He had 27 points, 8 assists, and 6 rebounds in an 82–70 win over 17th-ranked Boston College, three days after the Eagles had knocked off No. 1 North Carolina.

In his senior year (2009–10), Lin averaged 16.4 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 2.4 steals and 1.1 blocks, and was again a unanimous selection for All-Ivy League First Team. He was one of 30 midseason candidates for the John R. Wooden Award and one of 11 finalists for the Bob Cousy Award. He was also invited to the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament. Fran Fraschilla of ESPN picked Lin among the 12 most versatile players in college basketball. He gained national attention for his performance against the 12th ranked Connecticut Huskies, against whom he scored a career-high tying 30 points and grabbed nine rebounds on the road. After the game, Hall of Fame Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun said of Lin:

"I've seen a lot of teams come through here, and he could play for any of them. He's got great, great composure on the court. He knows how to play."

For the season, Harvard set numerous program records including wins (21), non-conference wins (11), home wins (11) and road/neutral wins (10).

Lin finished his career as the first player in the history of the Ivy League to record at least 1,450 points (1,483), 450 rebounds (487), 400 assists (406) and 200 steals (225).

He graduated from Harvard with a degree in economics and a 3.1 grade-point average.

NBA career

Undrafted

If drafted, Lin would have been the first Ivy Leaguer selected by the NBA since Jerome Allen of Pennsylvania in the second round in 1995. The last Ivy Leaguer to play in the NBA was Yale's Chris Dudley in , while the last Harvard player in the league was Ed Smith in . After graduating from Harvard University, Lin went undrafted in the 2010 NBA Draft. Eight teams had invited Lin to predraft workouts. Diepenbrock said that NBA tryouts do not play five on five. Lin acknowledged that the workouts were "one on one or two on two or three on three, and that’s not where I excel. I’ve never played basketball like that."

He later joined the Dallas Mavericks for mini-camp as well as their NBA Summer League team in Las Vegas. Donnie Nelson of the Mavericks was the only General Manager that offered him an invitation to play in the Summer League. "Donnie took care of me," said Lin. "He has a different type of vision than most people do."

In five Summer League games, while playing both guard positions, Lin averaged 9.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists, and 1.2 steals in 18.6 minutes per game and shot a team leading 54.5% from the floor. Lin turned heads in his matchup against first overall pick John Wall when Lin scored 13 points to Wall's 21, but did so on 6-for-12 shooting in 28 minutes. Wall was 4-for-19 in 33 minutes.

While Wall received the biggest cheer for any player during introductions, the crowd had turned on Wall and was cheering for Lin by the end of the game.

Lin received offers to sign from the Mavericks, Los Angeles Lakers, and an unnamed Eastern Conference team. The Golden State Warriors would also offer Lin a contract in addition to the original three teams.

Golden State Warriors

On July 21, 2010, Lin signed a two-year deal with his hometown Warriors, his favorite team growing up. Lin's deal was partially guaranteed for 2010-11, and the Warriors hold a team option for the second season. The reports noted that the deal would include a first-year salary of close to $500,000 with more than half of it guaranteed. Lacob had made the decision to sign Lin. Lin said the counteroffers from the three other teams were higher, but he wanted to come home and play for the Warriors.

Lin also signed a three-year guaranteed contract with Nike. His jersey was already on sale before his first NBA game.

On October 8 in the Warriors' exhibition opener at their home in Oracle Arena, the loudest ovation of the night from the crowd of 10,004 was for Lin when he entered the game with 10:49 remaining in the fourth quarter. The crowd started chanting for Lin in the third quarter. They cheered whenever he touched the ball. "That really touched me. It's something I'll remember forever," Lin said. He ended up with seven points, three rebounds and two assists in 11 minutes. Warriors' head coach Keith Smart said Lin drew the crowd's attention on the road as well. Scott Howard-Cooper of NBA.com attributes the attention Lin had received out of town to the unique angle of "an Asian-American rising to rare basketball prominence".

Lin notices the expectations that follow him. "I've got news for them," Lin said with a smile, "I won't be an All-Star this year."

The attention Lin has received is tricky for him. While he would prefer to be able to just concentrate on his play without all the attention, he is appreciative of the unbelievable support he has received, especially from the Asian-American community. Lin wants to be a role model to young Asian-Americans. He has found the attention awkward as he says he has not "proven anything to anybody."

Frank Hughes of ''Sports Illustrated'' wrote that Lin talks with the occasional "seeds of self-doubt" which is not common to hear in the NBA. Hughes also found it rare when Lin compared himself to the Phoenix Suns' backup point guard Goran Dragić. “Neither of us is a freak athlete, but we’re both effective and know how to play the game,” Lin said.

Lin and Stephen Curry, 2009–10 runner-up Rookie of the Year and a gold medal winner in the 2010 FIBA World Championship, get more interview requests than any other Warrior. Team officials regularly deny requests for Lin to help him keep his focus. He has been approached to be the subject of documentaries.

Smart planned to take pressure off Lin since Lin has a tendency to be hard on himself and get frustrated. Smart admitted that he succumbed to the home crowd's wishes and put Lin into a game in the wrong situation. He vowed not to repeat that mistake.

Lin made the Warriors' opening day roster for the 2010–11 regular season, but he was placed on the inactive list. While he was disappointed, Lin noted that "part of being on this team is putting your ego aside." Lin made his official NBA debut in the next game against the Los Angeles Clippers. It was Asian Heritage Night for the Warriors' home game, and Lin received a standing ovation from the crowd of 17,408 when he entered the game with 2:32 remaining in the fourth quarter. He did not score in the 109–91 win but recorded one steal after tying up the ball and winning the subsequent jump ball.

In the next game against the Los Angeles Lakers, Lin scored his first NBA basket, had three assists, and recorded four steals. He was applauded by the road crowd at Staples Center when he entered the game in the third quarter. He played 11 of his 16 minutes in the third quarter and committed five fouls but played a role in a 12-1 run by the Warriors. "[Lin] came in and did a good job, gave us a good tempo," Smart said after the 107–83 loss to the defending NBA champions. Lakers' guard Derek Fisher praised him for his energy and aggressiveness.

Similar to the exhibition home opener, Oracle Arena fans continued to root for Lin to play in the end of games and cheered every time he touched the ball. "When I'm on the road, I don't feel like the spotlight is on me," Lin admitted. Smart noted that Lin looked more relaxed on the road. "There's a lot of pressure on him at home, with all of the applause for just checking into the game, so I'm sure that cranks his nerves up a little bit," said Curry. "You can tell on the road he plays a lot better, because he can just go out there, play and have fun."

At Toronto on November 8, the Raptors held Asian Heritage Night to coincide with Lin's visit with the Warriors. Over 20 members of Toronto's Chinese media covered the game. Lin played 15 minutes, most coming in the first half, and finished with three points, three assists, two steals and two blocks in the 109–102 Warriors' win. In the following game at Madison Square Garden against the New York Knicks, Lin again entered the game in the first half. According to ESPN.com NBA editor Matt Wong, "Lin checked into the game to loud applause, presumably from the many Asian-Americans in attendance." He had scored seven total points in his first six games played during the year. In a 89-117 road loss to the Lakers, Lin scored a career-high 13 points in 18 minutes and again earned big cheers from fans in Los Angeles.

An April 5, 2011, article posted by Slam Online stated that during intrasquad scrimmages between Warriors players, head coach Keith Smart implemented a rule. The rule was that no foul committed against Lin would ever be called. The idea behind this is that since Lin was rookie and a not a well-known established player, he would not get many calls from the referees. Thus Jeremy would learn how to play through it and coach Smart acknowledged that Jeremy has. In the same article, Lin credits Reno Bighorns coach Eric Musselman with "helping him regain [his] swagger."

Three times during the season, Lin was assigned to the Warriors' D-League affiliate, the Reno Bighorns. Each time, he was later recalled by the Warriors. He competed in the NBA D-League Showcase and was named to the All-NBA D-League Showcase First Team on January 14, 2011. He helped lead the Bighorns to a 2-0 record at the Showcase with averages of 21.5 points, 6.0 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 3.5 steals. Lin posted a season-high 27 points with the Bighorns on March 18. Lin had some misgivings when sent to the D-League because he felt he was being demoted and was not good enough to play in the NBA. After playing in the D-League, he realized he was still learning and putting in work and getting playing time in the D-League, which he wouldn't have received at the time with the Warriors. Lacob said the Warriors received more than one trade offer for Lin while he was in the D-League, but he was happy with Lin's progress as an undrafted free agent. "He’s a minimum, inexpensive asset. You need to look at him as a developing asset. Is he going to be a superstar? No."

NBA career statistics

Regular season

|- | style="text-align:left;"| 2010–11 | style="text-align:left;"| Golden State | 29 || 0 || 9.8 || .389 || .200 || .760 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 1.1 || .3 || 2.6 |- | style="text-align:left;"| Career | style="text-align:left;"| | 29 || 0 || 9.8 || .389 || .200 || .760 || 1.2 || 1.4 || 1.1 || .3 || 2.6

International competition

Lin has been invited by Chinese Taipei, which is the designated name used by the Republic of China (Taiwan) in international events, to play for their men's national basketball team in FIBA competitions. On July 28, 2010 while in Taipei to play in Yao Ming's charity game, Lin said he had not made a decision yet on whether he would represent Chinese Taipei. In June 2011, the Chinese Taipei Basketball Association (CTBA) included Lin in its preliminary squad of 24 players for the 2011 FIBA Asia Championship. The next month, however, the CTBA announced that Lin would not be included on their roster due to a knee injury. Lin was also approached by People's Republic of China to play in the same tournament, but he declined their offer.

On August 4, 2011, Lin stated that he would consider playing overseas during the 2011 NBA lockout. He wants to be fully recovered from his injury before making a decision.

Asian American stereotypes

Sean Gregory of ''Time'' wrote of Lin's zero Division I scholarship offers: "[Lin] was scrawny, but don't doubt that a little racial profiling, intentional or otherwise, contributed to his underrecruitment." Lin said: "I'm not saying top-5 state automatically gets you offers, but I do think (my ethnicity) did affect the way coaches recruited me. I think if I were a different race, I would've been treated differently."

Lin's high school coach, Peter Diepenbrock, said that people without meaning any harm assume since Lin is Asian that he is not a basketball player. The first time Lin went to a Pro-Am game in Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco, his coach said, someone there informed him: "Sorry, sir, there's no volleyball here tonight. It's basketball." During Lin's college career, fewer than 0.5% of men's Division 1 basketball players were Asian-American.

Lin has regularly heard bigoted jeers at games such as "Wonton soup", "Sweet and sour pork", "Open your eyes!", "Go back to China", "Orchestra is on the other side of campus", or Chinese gibberish. Lin says this occurred even at most if not all Ivy League gyms. He does not react to it. "I expect it, I'm used to it, it is what it is," says Lin. The heckling came mostly from fans and not as much from players. According to Harvard teammate Oliver McNally, a fellow Ivy League player did once call Lin a "chink".

In January 2010, Harvard played against Santa Clara University at the Leavey Center, just 15 miles from his hometown of Palo Alto, California. Playing to a capacity crowd that included droves of Asian Americans wanting to see his homecoming, his teammates told him, "It was like Hong Kong."

Lin considers himself a basketball player more than an Asian American. He understands that there are not many Asians in the NBA. "Maybe I can help break the stereotype," said Lin. Asian Americans who have played in the NBA prior to the 2010–11 NBA season include Wataru Misaka, Raymond Townsend, Corey Gaines, Rex Walters, and Robert Swift. "[Lin's] carrying the hopes of an entire continent. I only had to carry the hopes of Little Rock, Arkansas. He's accomplished a lot more than I have already," said Derek Fisher, who had won five NBA championships with the Lakers, after his first game against Lin. Lin is setting an example for prospective Asian athletes in America who rarely see Asian-Americans playing on their favorite teams. "I don't look Japanese," Walters said, referring to his mother's ethnicity. "When they see [Lin], it's an Asian-American.

Larry Riley, the Warriors' general manager, denied that Lin’s signing was done to cater to the Bay Area’s large Asian population. He understood that some people would look at it that way. “We evaluated him throughout summer league," Riley said. “All that had to happen was for him to confirm what we already believed." While the team was creating a campaign around him, Riley said it would not have been advisable if Lin was not a basketball player first.

Personal

Lin grew up in Palo Alto, California. His parents, Gie-Ming and Shirley, emigrated from Taiwan to the United States in the mid-1970s. They are both 5 feet 6 inches tall. His paternal family comes from Beidou, Changhua in Taiwan. with ancestry in Zhangpu, Fujian; while his maternal grandmother is from Pinghu, Zhejiang in today's China. He has an older brother, Josh, and a younger brother, Joseph, who is set to play basketball for Dickinson College in the fall of 2010. Gie-Ming taught his sons to play basketball at the local YMCA. Lin grew up in a devout Christian family and would one day like to be a pastor who can head up non-profit organizations, either home or abroad. He has also talked of working in inner-city communities to help with underprivileged children.

In a video interview conducted by Elie Seckbach, he asked Jeremy how it felt to be representing so many people. Jeremy responded by stating, "It's humbling, a privilege, and a honor. I'm really proud of being Chinese, I'm really proud of my parents being from Taiwan. I just thank God for the opportunity." He was then asked if he was fluent in Chinese. Jeremy stated that he could understand it, but could use some help speaking it. In an interview conducted with NBADraft.net, Jeremy stated that he could only speak Mandarin, not Cantonese but can only read and write a little but had also taken classes while attending Harvard to try to improve. In a later interview attended by basketball players (under the age of 19) from Taiwan, he stated he would like to visit Taiwan again but also work on speaking Chinese. Later this summer Jeremy will being making a trip to Asia, which is sponsored by Nike where he hopes to converse with fans in Mandarin.

Public image

In July 2011, ''Vivid Magazine'', a glossy magazine dedicated to overseas Chinese around the world, named Lin one of its top eight influential Chinese-Americans.

References

Further reading

The Faith and Fate of Jeremy Lin at Patheos – part 1

Jeremy Lin – Faith and Ethnicity at Patheos – part 2

Harvard Basketball Takes Off on InterVarsity.org (from InterVarsity Christian Fellowship)

Jeremy Lin: Taking Harvard basketball to new levels – Student Soul interview with Jeremy

Jeremy Lin at Ivy League Basketball News – Jeremy Lin videos & news clips at Ivybbn.com

External links

NBA profile

NBA biography

NBA D-League profile

NBA.com 2010 Draft profile

Category:American sportspeople of Taiwanese descent Category:American sportspeople of Chinese descent Category:American Christians Category:Basketball players from California Category:Harvard Crimson men's basketball players Category:Palo Alto High School alumni Category:Living people Category:1988 births Category:Golden State Warriors players Category:Undrafted National Basketball Association players Category:Reno Bighorns players

es:Jeremy Lin fr:Jeremy Lin it:Jeremy Lin zh:林書豪

Coordinates	38°37′38″N90°11′52″N
name	Robert Lowell
birth name	Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV
birth date	March 01, 1917
birth place	Boston, Massachusetts, USA
death date	September 12, 1977
death place	New York City, New York, USA
occupation	Poet
nationality	United States
period	1944-1977
genre	American poetry
notableworks	''Life Studies,'' ''For the Union Dead''
movement	Confessional poetry
spouse	Jean Stafford (1940-1948)Elizabeth Hardwick (1949-1972)Caroline Blackwood (1972-1977)
children	Harriet Lowell, Sheridan Lowell
relatives	Amy Lowell, James Russell Lowell
influences	Elizabeth Bishop, John Crowe Ransom, Hart Crane, Allen Tate, William Carlos Williams
influenced	Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Frederick Seidel, Derek Walcott
website	}}

Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948. He won the Pulitzer Prize in both 1947 and 1974, the National Book Award in 1960, and the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1977.

Life

Lowell was born in Boston, Massachusetts to a Boston Brahmin family that included poets Amy Lowell and James Russell Lowell. His mother, Charlotte Winslow, was a descendant of William Samuel Johnson, a signer of the United States Constitution, along with Jonathan Edwards, the famed Calvinist theologian, Anne Hutchinson, the Puritan preacher and healer, Robert Livingston the Elder, Thomas Dudley, the second governor of Massachusetts, and ''Mayflower'' passengers James Chilton and his daughter Mary Chilton.

He received his high school education at St. Mark's School, a prominent prep-school in Southborough, Massachusetts, where he met and was influenced by the poet Richard Eberhart who taught at the school. Then Lowell attended Harvard College for two years before transferring to Kenyon College in Gambier, Ohio, to study under John Crowe Ransom and Allen Tate.

There's a well-known anecdote about where Lowell lived when he first arrived at Kenyon. Before arriving at the school, he asked Allen Tate if he could live with him, and Tate joked that if Lowell wanted to, he could pitch a tent on his lawn. And this is exactly what Lowell did. In an interview for The Paris Review, Lowell stated that he went to Sears, Roebuck to purchase the "pup tent" that he set up on Tate's lawn and lived in for two months Lowell called the act "a terrible piece of youthful callousness." Fortunately for Tate and his wife, Lowell soon settled into the so-called "writer's house" (a dorm that received its nickname after it had accrued a number of ambitious young writers) with fellow students Peter Taylor, Robie Macauley and Randall Jarrell.

Partly in rebellion against his parents, he converted from Episcopalianism to Catholicism, which influenced his first two books, ''Land of Unlikeness'' (1944) and the Pulitzer Prize–winning ''Lord Weary's Castle'' (1946). By the end of the forties, he left the Catholic Church. In 1950, Lowell was included in the influential anthology ''Mid-Century American Poets'' as one of the key literary figures of his generation. Among his contemporaries who also appeared in that book were Muriel Rukeyser, Karl Shapiro, Elizabeth Bishop, Theodore Roethke, Randall Jarrell, and John Ciardi, all poets who came into prominence in the 1940s. From 1950 to 1953, Lowell taught in the well-reputed Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, together with Paul Engle, Robie Macauley, and Anthony Hecht. Later, Donald James Winslow hired Lowell to teach at Boston University, where his students included the poets Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton. Over the years, he taught at a number of other universities including the University of Cincinnati, Yale University, Harvard University, and the New School for Social Research.

Lowell was a conscientious objector during World War II and served several months at the federal prison in Danbury, Connecticut. He explained his decision not to serve in World War II in a letter addressed to President Franklin Roosevelt on September 7, 1943, stating, "Dear Mr President: I very much regret that I must refuse the opportunity you offer me in your communication of August 6, 1943 for service in the Armed Force." In the letter, he goes on to explain that after the bombing at Pearl Harbor, he was prepared to fight in the war until he read about the United States' terms of unconditional surrender which he feared would lead to the "permanent destruction of Germany and Japan." Before Lowell was tranferred to the prison in Connecticut, he was held in a prison in New York City which he would later write about in the poem "Memories of West Street and Lepke" from his book ''Life Studies''.

In 1949, he was involved in Yaddo's share of the Red Scare when he attempted unsuccessfully to oust Yaddo's director Elizabeth Ames who was being questioned by the FBI for her alleged involvement with writer Agnes Smedley, who was being accused of spying for the Soviet Union.

By 1967, he was the most public, well-known American poet, and this attention was increased in June of that year, when Lowell appeared on the cover of ''Time'' magazine as part of a lengthy cover story on American poetry in which he was praised as "the best American poet of his generation." Although the article gave a general overview of modern American poetry (mentioning Lowell's contemporaries like John Berryman and Elizabeth Bishop), Lowell's life, career, and place in the American literary canon remained the article's focus.

During the late 1960s Lowell was also active in the civil rights movement and opposed the US involvement in Vietnam. His participation in the October 1967 peace march in Washington, DC and his subsequent arrest would be described in the early sections of Norman Mailer's ''The Armies of the Night''. In that book, Mailer wrote, "[Lowell spoke] in his fine stammering voice which gave the impression that life rushed at him in a series of hurdles and some he succeeded in jumping and some he did not." He also wrote that "all flaws considered, Lowell was still a fine, good, and honorable man."

Lowell married the novelist Jean Stafford in 1940. Before their marriage, in 1938, Lowell and Stafford got into a terrible car accident, in which Lowell was at the wheel, that left Stafford permanently scarred, while Lowell walked away unscathed. The couple had a tumultuous marriage that ended in 1948. The poet Anthony Hecht characterized the marriage as "a tormented and tormenting one." Then, shortly thereafter, in 1949 Lowell married the writer Elizabeth Hardwick with whom he had a daughter, Harriet, in 1957. Later, the press would characterize their marriage as "restless and emotionally harrowing." After 23 years of marriage to Elizabeth Hardwick, in 1970, Lowell left her for the British author Lady Caroline Blackwood. Blackwood and Lowell were married in 1972 in England where they decided to settle and where they raised their son, Sheridan.

Lowell had a notably close friendship with the poet Elizabeth Bishop that lasted from 1947 until Lowell's death in 1977. Both writers relied upon one another for feedback on their poetry (which is in evidence in their voluminous correspondence, published in the book ''Words in Air: the Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell'' in 2008) and thereby influenced one another's work. Bishop's influence over Lowell can be seen at work in at least two of Lowell's poems: "The Scream" (inspired by Bishop's short story "In the Village") and "Skunk Hour" (inspired by Bishop's poem "The Armadillo").

Lowell suffered from manic depression and was hospitalized many times throughout his adult life for this mental illness. Although his manic depression was often a great burden (for himself and his family), the subject of that mental illness led to some of his most important poetry, particularly as it manifested itself in his book ''Life Studies''. When he was fifty, Lowell began taking lithium to treat his mental illness. The editor of Lowell's ''Letters'', Saskia Hamilton notes, "Lithium treatment relieved him from suffering the idea that he was morally and emotionally responsible for the fact that he relapsed. However, it did not entirely prevent relapses. . .And he was troubled and anxious about the impact of his relapses on his family and friends until the end of his life."

Lowell died in 1977, having suffered a heart attack in a cab in New York City on his way to see his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. He was buried in Stark Cemetery, Dunbarton, New Hampshire.

Writing

1940s

Lowell's first book of poems, ''Land of Unlikeness'' (1944), did not receive much attention. However, in 1946, Lowell received wide acclaim for his next book, ''Lord Weary's Castle'', which included five poems slightly revised from ''Land of Unlikeness'', plus thirty new poems. Among the better known poems in the volume are "Mr Edwards and the Spider" and "The Quaker Graveyard in Nantucket." ''Lord Weary's Castle'' was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947.

Lowell's early poems are formal, ornate, and concerned with violence and theology; a typical example is the close of "The Quaker Graveyard" -- "You could cut the brackish winds with a knife / Here in Nantucket and cast up the time / When the Lord God formed man from the sea's slime / And breathed into his face the breath of life, / And the blue-lung'd combers lumbered to the kill. / The Lord survives the rainbow of His will." He was Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress for 1947−1948 (a position now known as the U.S. Poet Laureate).

1950s

''The Mills of the Kavanaughs'' (1951), a book that centered on its epic title poem, did not receive similar acclaim, but Lowell was able to revive his reputation with ''Life Studies'' which was published in 1959 and won the National Book Award for poetry in 1960. In his acceptance speech for the award, Lowell famously divided American poetry into two camps: the "cooked" and the "raw." This commentary by Lowell was made in reference to the popularity of Allen Ginsberg and the Beat Generation poets and was a signal from Lowell that he was trying to incorporate some of their "raw" energy into his own poetry.

The poems in ''Life Studies'' were written in a mix of free and metered verse, with much more informal language than he had used in his first two books. It marked both a big turning point in Lowell's career, and a turning point for American poetry in general. Because many of the poems documented details from Lowell's family life and personal problems, one critic, M.L. Rosenthal, labeled the book "confessional." Lowell's editor and friend Frank Bidart notes in his afterword to Lowell's ''Collected Poems,'' "Lowell is widely, perhaps indelibly associated with the term 'confessional,'" though Bidart questions the accuracy of this label. But for better or worse, this label stuck and led to Lowell being grouped together with other influential confessional poets like Lowell's former students W. D. Snodgrass, Sylvia Plath, and Anne Sexton.

1960s

Lowell followed ''Life Studies'' with ''Imitations'' (1961), a volume of loose translations of poems by classical and modern European poets, including Rilke, Montale, Baudelaire, Pasternak, and Rimbaud, for which he received the 1962 Bollingen Poetry Translation Prize. However, critical response to ''Imitations'' was mixed and sometimes hostile (as was the case with Vladimir Nabokov's public response to Lowell's Mandelstam translations). In the book's introduction, Lowell explained that his idiosyncratic translations should be thought of as "imitations" rather than strict translations since he took many liberties with the originals, trying to "do what [his] authors might have done if they were writing their poems now and in America."

His next book ''For the Union Dead'' (1964) was widely praised, particularly for its title poem, which invokes Allen Tate's "Ode to the Confederate Dead." ''For the Union Dead'' was Lowell's first book since ''Life Studies'' to contain all original verse (since it did not include any translations), and in writing the poems in this volume, Lowell built upon the looser, more personal style of writing that he'd established in the final section of ''Life Studies''. However, none of the poems in ''For the Union Dead'' explicitly addressed the taboo subject of Lowell's mental illness (like some of the poems in ''Life Studies'' did) and were, therefore, not notably "confessional." The subject matter in ''For the Union Dead'' was also much broader than it was in ''Life Studies''. For instance, Lowell wrote about a number of world historical figures in poems like "Caligula," "Jonathan Edwards in Western Massachusetts," and "Lady Raleigh's Lament."

In ''Near the Ocean'', which followed a couple of years later, Lowell had returned to stanzaic forms, and the second half of the book shows Lowell returning once again to writing loose translations (including verse approximations of Dante, Juvenal, and Horace). The best known poem in this volume is "Waking Early Sunday Morning," which was written in eight-line tetrameter stanzas (borrowed from Andrew Marvell's poem "Upon Appleton House") and showed contemporary American politics overtly entering into Lowell's work.

During 1967 and 1968 he experimented with a verse journal, published as ''Notebook 1967-68'' (and later republished in a revised edition, simply titled ''Notebook''). Lowell referred to these fourteen-line poems as sonnets although they often failed to incorporate regular meter or rhyme (both of which are defining features of the sonnet form); however, some of the sonnets (particularly the ones in ''Notebook 1967-1968'') were often written in blank verse with a definitive pentameter. In the flyleaf to ''Notebook 1967-1968'', Lowell explained the timeline of the book:

The time is a summer, an autumn, a winter, a spring, another summer; here the poem ends, except for turned-back bits of fall and winter 1968. . .My plot rolls with the seasons. The separate poems and section are opportunist and inspired by impulse. Accident threw up subjects, and the plot swallowed them--famished for human chances.

Steven Gould Axelrod wrote that, "[Lowell's concept behind the sonnet form] was to achieve the balance of freedom and order, discontinuity and continuity, that he [had] observed in [Wallace] Stevens's late long poems and in John Berryman's ''Dream Songs,'' then nearing completion. He hoped that his form . . . would enable him 'to describe the immediate instant,' an instant in which political and personal happenings interacted with a lifetime's accumulation of memories, dreams, and knowledge." Lowell liked the new form so much that he reworked and revised many of the poems from ''Notebook'' and used them as the foundation for his next three volumes of verse, all of which employed the same loose, fourteen-line sonnet form.

1970s to the Present

The first of these books was ''History'' (1973) which primarily dealt with world history from antiquity up to the mid-20th century (although the book doesn't always follow a linear or logical path and contains many poems about Lowell's friends, peers, and family). The second book, ''For Lizzie and Harriet'' (1973), describes the breakdown of his second marriage and contains poems that are supposed to be in the voice of his daughter, Harriet, and his second wife, Elizabeth. Finally, the last work in Lowell's sonnet sequence, ''The Dolphin'' (1973), which won the 1974 Pulitzer Prize, includes poems about his daughter, his ex-wife, and his new wife Caroline Blackwood whom he'd affectionately nicknamed "Dolphin." Notably, the book only contained new poems, making it the only book in Lowell's sonnet trilogy not to include revised poems from ''Notebook''.

A minor controversy erupted when Lowell admitted to having incorporated (and altered) private letters from his ex-wife, Elizabeth Hardwick into poems for ''The Dolphin''. He was particularly criticized for this by his friends, fellow-poets Adrienne Rich and Elizabeth Bishop. Bishop made an eloquent and thoughtful argument to Lowell against publishing ''The Dolphin''. In a letter to Lowell regarding ''The Dolphin'', dated March 21, 1972, before he'd published the book, Bishop praises the writing, saying, "Please believe that I think it is wonderful poetry." But then she states, "I'm sure my point is only too plain. . .Lizzie [Hardwick] is not dead, etc.--but there is a 'mixture of fact & fiction' [in the book], and you have ''changed'' [Hardwick's] letters. That is 'infinite mischief,' I think. . .One can use one's life as material--one does anyway--but these letters--aren't you violating a trust? IF you were given permission--IF you hadn't changed them. . .etc. But ''art just isn't worth that much''."

Lowell published his last volume of poetry, ''Day by Day'', in 1977 (also the year of his death). The book won that year's National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. In a PBS documentary on Lowell, Anthony Hecht said that "[''Day by Day'' was] a very touching, moving, gentle book, tinged with a sense of [Lowell's] own pain and the pain [he'd] given to others." It was Lowell's only volume to contain nothing but free verse, and for fans of Lowell's work who were disappointed by the uneven "sonnets" that Lowell had been re-writing and re-packaging in volume after volume since 1967, ''Day by Day'' marked a return to form. In many of the poems, Lowell reflects on his life, his past relationships, and his own mortality. The best-known poem from this collection is the last one, titled "Epilogue," in which Lowell reflects upon the "confessional" school of poetry with which his work was associated. In this poem he wrote,

But sometimes everything I write with the threadbare art of my eye seems a snapshot, lurid, rapid, garish, grouped, heightened from life, yet paralyzed by fact. All's misalliance. Yet why not say what happened?

Lowell's ''Collected Poems'', edited by Frank Bidart and David Gewanter, was published in 2003. The Collected Poems is a very comprehensive volume that includes all of Lowell's major works with the exception of ''Notebook 1967-1968'' and ''Notebook''. However, many of the poems from these volumes were republished, in revised forms, in ''History'' and ''For Lizzie and Harriet''. On the heels of the publication of ''The Collected Poems'', ''The Letters of Robert Lowell'', edited by Saskia Hamilton, was published in 2005. Both Lowell's ''Collected Poems'' and his ''Letters'' received overwhelmingly positive critical responses from the mainstream press, and their publication has since led to a renewed interest in Lowell's writing.

Poetry collections

''Land of Unlikeness'' (1944)

''Lord Weary's Castle'' (1946)

''The Mills of The Kavanaughs'' (1951)

''Life Studies'' (1959)

''Phaedra (translation)'' (1961)

''Imitations'' (1961)

''For the Union Dead'' (1964)

''The Old Glory'' (1965)

''Near the Ocean'' (1967)

''Notebook 1967-1968'' (1969) (Revised and Expanded as ''Notebook'', 1970)

''The Voyage & other versions of poems of Baudelaire'' (1969)

''Prometheus Bound'' (1969)

''History'' (1973)

''For Lizzie and Harriet'' (1973)

''The Dolphin'' (1973)

''Selected Poems'' (1976) (Revised Edition, 1977)

''Day by Day'' (1977)

''The Oresteia of Aeschylus'' (1978)

''Collected Poems'' (2003)

''Selected Poems'' (2006) (Expanded Edition)

Further reading

Hamilton, Ian. ''Robert Lowell: A Biography'', Faber & Faber, 1982.

Lowell, Robert. ''Collected Poems''. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2003.

Mariani, Paul. ''Lost Puritan: A Life of Robert Lowell''. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996.

Travisano, Thomas and Saskia Hamilton, eds. ''Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell''. Farrar, Strauss & Giroux, 2008.

References

External links

"Epilogue" by Robert Lowell at the Poetry Foundation.

Articles on Lowell at Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois. Accessed 2010-09-11

Articles on Lowell at Modern American Poetry, University of Illinois. Accessed 2010-09-11

findagrave.com">Lowell's grave site at findagrave.com.

Helen Vendler phone interview on Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop audio podcast from ''The New York Review of Books''. Accessed 2010-09-11

Dan Chiasson's Review of ''Words In Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell'' November 3, 2008. ''The New Yorker''. Accessed 2010-09-11

Category:American conscientious objectors Category:American Poets Laureate Category:American poets Category:Converts to Roman Catholicism Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction Category:Formalist poets Category:Guggenheim Fellows Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Kenyon College alumni Category:National Book Award winners Category:National Book Critics Circle Award winner Category:Pulitzer Prize for Poetry winners Category:St. Mark's School (Massachusetts) alumni Category:University of Iowa faculty Category:Iowa Writers' Workshop faculty Category:1917 births Category:1977 deaths

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