Snodgrass was born on January 5, 1926, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, to Bruce De Witt, an accountant, and Jesse Helen (Murchie) Snodgrass. The family lived in Wilkinsburg, but drove to Beaver Falls for his birth since his grandfather was a doctor in the town. Eventually the family moved to Beaver Falls and Snodgrass graduated from the local high school in 1943. He then attended Geneva College until 1944 when he was drafted into the United States Navy. After demobilization in 1946, Snodgrass transferred to the University of Iowa and enrolled in the Iowa Writers' Workshop, originally intending to become a playwright but eventually joining the poetry workshop[1] which was attracting as teachers some of the finest poetic talents of the day, among them John Berryman, Randall Jarrell and Robert Lowell. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1949, a Master of Arts degree in 1951, and a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1953.[2]
Snodgrass was known to friends throughout his life as "De", pronounced "dee",[3] but only published using his initials. He had a long and distinguished academic career, having taught at Cornell (1955-57), Rochester (1957-58), Wayne State (1959–68), Syracuse (1968-77), Old Dominion (1978-79), and the University of Delaware.[3] He retired from teaching in 1994[3] to devote himself full-time to his writing. This included autobiographical sketches, essays, and the critical verse "deconstructions" of De/Compositions. He died in his home in Madison County, New York, aged 83, following a four-month battle with lung cancer,[3] and was survived by his fourth wife, writer Kathleen Snodgrass.
Snodgrass had married his first wife, Lila Jean Hank, in 1946, by whom he had a daughter, Cynthia Jean. Their marriage ended in divorce in 1953 and it was the separation from his daughter as a result that became the subject of his first collection, Heart's Needle. The following year Snodgrass married his second wife, Janice Marie Ferguson Wilson. Together they have a son, Russell Bruce, and a stepdaughter, Kathy Ann Wilson. Divorcing again in 1966, he married his third wife, Camille Rykowski in 1967 but this ended in 1978. His fourth marriage to Kathleen Ann Brown was in 1985.[2]
