Robert Penn Warren Circle attracts nationally-known scholars

Robert Penn Warren

Clarksville, TN – Robert Penn Warren is the only writer to date with three Pulitzer Prizes, two in poetry and one in fiction. In 1980, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter, and in 1986, Warren was named the first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry by the Library of Congress.

His senior year was spent at Clarksville High School prior to his attending Vanderbilt University. Although he had been appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy, he was unable to enter school there because during the summer, his brother had tossed either a stone or piece of coal that landed in Robert Penn’s eye; this eventually resulted in blindness and the removal of his left eye. While at Vanderbilt, Warren became a member of a writers’ group known as The Fugitives and the rest is history. [Read more]