A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 PLUTARCH AWARD • An evocative portrait of the beloved and acclaimed poet, whose late-in-life success took the literary world by storm. “Clampitt comes to life here...Spiegelman’s Nothing Stays Put embodies a different kind of investigation, not surveillance but a thoughtful examination that at times still spins off into a kind of awe.” — The Washington Post With the publication of her first book of poems in her sixty-third year, Amy Clampitt rose meteorically to fame, launching herself from obscurity to the upper ranks of American poetry all but overnight, and living a whirlwind eleven years, until her death in 1994. Years later, as renowned poetry scholar Willard Spiegelman wades into her papers and poems, he discovers a woman of dazzling intellect, staunch progressive politics, and an inexhaustible sense of wonder for the world and the words we’ve invented to describe it. Giving equal weight to the life and the poetry, Spiegelman untangles Clampitt’s famously allusive lines to reveal the experiences they emerged from, pulling the curtain back on her nearly four decades of artistic anonymity, and in doing so assembling a rich period piece of Manhattan during the days in which Clampitt worked for Oxford University Press and the National Audubon Society—writing cheery, discursive office memos, and two novels that never got published, before hitting her stride in verse. Nothing Stays Put is a gift to poetry fans, an inspiration to artists striving at any age, and an ode to this most unlikely of literary celebrities, who would publish five acclaimed books and win a MacArthur “Genius Grant” nearly all in the final decade of her life. “A testament to the mystery of what writers are and how they become it . . . The most obvious reason to read Clampitt’s biography is the improbability of her career, in which not just success but good writing came very slow and then all at once . . . [Spiegelman] often notices a formal feature, such as her much-loved lists, and then uses it to consider the life. In less subtle hands, the method could be reductive, but Spiegelman notes Clampitt’s style of writing, recounts her style of being, and allows the two to illuminate each other.” —Anthony Domestico, The New York Review of Books “Clampitt had a hard life, but Spiegelman makes it read as a victorious one . . . The book taught me so much about her early life that I hadn't known, and made me recall so many poems that I haven’t seen in years.” —Helen Vendler “Clampitt comes to life here . . . Spiegelman’s Nothing Stays Put embodies a different kind of investigation, not surveillance but a thoughtful examination that at times still spins off into a kind of awe.” —Carol Muske-Dukes, The Washington Post “One comes away from this book moved and inspired. Spiegelman’s prose is elegant and understated, and his research quietly impressive . . . One of the pleasures of this biography is watching Spiegelman keep pace with his subject’s roving, hungry mind. His insistence upon treating Clampitt as the curious and generous intellectual she was is commendable and refreshing . . . Spiegelman’s close readings of Clampitt’s poems, too, are always illuminating . . . Clampitt is lucky to have the attention of such a sympathetic, literary biographer.” —Heather Clark, Poetry Foundation “An insightful and enthralling account of Clampitt’s exquisite art and her long journey from virtual obscurity to poetic celebrity . . . [An] astute analysis of [Clampitt’s] poems that truly satisfies . . . A detailed portrait of an independent spirit and a remarkable poet.” —Malcolm Forbes, The Wall Street Journal “This lucid biography tracks [Amy Clampitt’s] path to eventual fame . . . Spiegelman insists that much cannot be known about a poet so resolutely private, though he successfully evokes an artist with a will strong enough to endure decades of false starts.” — The New Yorker “Well wrought and engaging . . . Spiegelman brings Amy Clampitt’s era fully to life, augmented with sensitive and informative readings of the poems.” —N.S. Thompson, The American Scholar “Stay put long enough to read this book! Amy Clampitt was a quirky, bookish, intoxicated, and radiant spirit, and Willard Spiegelman has captured her bright light in this delightfully offbeat, critical, erudite, and ardent biography.” —Edward Hirsch, author of Stranger by Night “From the bright strands of Amy Clampitt’s extraordinary life and poems—plus letters, diaries, and extensive interviews—Willard Spiegelman has woven a gorgeous tapestry of a book, and the authoritative account of one of our most beloved poets. Some biographies pin their subjects to the page like stiff butterflies, but Nothing Stays Put brings us Clampitt in all her brilliance: vivid, restless, and alive.” —Patrick Phillips, author of Song of the Closing Doors “With tenderness and a sense of wonder, Willard Spiegelma