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Conrad Potter Aiken (August 5, 1889 – August 17, 1973) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American author, born in Savannah, Georgia, whose work includes poetry, short stories and novels. When he was very young, his father killed his mother, then himself. Needless to say this had a profound impact on Aiken's life. He was thereafter raised by his great-great-aunt in Massachusetts. He was deeply influenced by Symbolism, especially in his earlier works. In 1930 he received the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Selected Poems.

He wrote the widely anthologised short story "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" (1934); his collections of verse include Earth Triumphant (1914), The Charnel Rose (1918), and And In the Hanging Gardens (1933). His poem "Music I Heard" has been set to music by a number of composers, including Leonard Bernstein and Henry Cowell.

Aiken's tomb, located in Bonaventure Cemetery on the banks of the Savannah River, was made famous after its mention in Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, the bestselling book by John Berendt. According to local legend, Aiken wished to have his tombstone fashioned in the shape of a bench as an invitation to visitors to stop and enjoy a drink of Madeira at his grave. Its inscriptions read "Give my love to the world," and "Cosmos Mariner—Destination Unknown."

He is the father of writer Joan Aiken.

Quotation

Over the darkened city, the city of towers,
The city of a thousand gates,
Over the gleaming terraced roofs, the huddled towers,
Over a somnolent whisper of loves and hates,
The slow wind flows, drearily streams and falls,
With a mournful sound down rain-dark walls.

— From The House of Dust

External links

• Works by Conrad Aiken at Project Gutenberg
• The House of Dust (1920)

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