July 11, 1917 [Jersey City, New Jersey] – May 27, 2001 [Los Angeles, California]
Spingarn was born in Jersey City, New Jersey, descended on his father’s side from Portuguese Jews who had arrived in in the U.S. in 1820. (An early book review notes Spingarn’s “Quaker-Spanish parentage” and “Maine background.”) He was raised in New York City. Poems appeared in the early-40s in Harper’s, Poetry and The Saturday Review. Dutton published his first book, Rococo Summer, in 1947. It’s unclear when he moved west, but he married Sylvia G Wainhouse in Los Angeles in 1949. He taught English at Valley College in Van Nuys and was living in that city when he died.
