L. E. Sissman


Louis Edward Sissman was a poet and advertising executive.

Biography

Sissman was raised in Detroit. He went to private schools, and in 1941 he became a national spelling champion when he won the 17th Scripps National Spelling Bee. He was a Quiz Kid.
Near the end of World War II Sissman entered Harvard. He was expelled but returned, graduating in 1949 as Class Poet.
In the 1950s he worked at Prentice-Hall as a copyeditor in New York City. In the 1960s he worked at odd jobs, including campaigning for John F. Kennedy. Eventually, he was hired by Quinn and Johnson Advertising, in Boston, and he rose to the position of Creative Vice President. He married Anne, and lived in Still River.
In 1965, he discovered he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He fought the disease for a decade. He wrote book reviews and poems for The New Yorker, monthly columns for The Atlantic, and was published in Harper's Magazine.
His papers are housed at Harvard University.

Awards