James Dickey (1923-1997): May have been best known for his novel Deliverance from which a popular film was made, but he was, above all, a poet. An early collection of his work Buckdancer’s Choice won the 1966 National Book Award for Poetry. In all, he published more than 20 books, including first novels and criticism. Dickey also wrote 16 poems about flight. His most famous aviation poems were: "The Fire Bombing," "Two Poems of the Air," "The Performance," "The Enclosure," Jewel," and "The Liberator Explodes." These poems can be found in The Whole Motion: Collected Poems, 1945-1992, Wesleyan University Press, 1992. Dickey enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1942 to serve in World War II. He attended PT-17 (Stearman) familiarization training at Camden, SC where he progressed to his solo flight. It only lasted five minutes and Dickey had to land. On July 6, he officially washed out, and went to Florida for gunnery training, and eventually radar operator training. Though Dickey himself did not complete pilot training, he eventually became a P-61 radar operator. He flew 39 missions in the P-61 ‘Black Widow’ with the 418th Night Fighter Squadron based in the South Pacific. He earned degrees from Vanderbilt University, and taught literature. He reentered the USAF in 1950 to train aircrews who would participate in the Korean conflict. Throughout his life he won several awards, and in 1966 was appointed Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress, the American equivalent of Poet Laureate. Throughout his life, his best work sought the ideal of romantic reinvigoration and renewal of language, a product of his fascination with heroic literature. Though questions often arise over Dickey’s embellishment of his life experiences, it does little to diminish the vicarious and dramatic affects of his poetry. Like Stephen Crane, he had a highly developed talent to insert himself into the minds and circumstances of others, particularly aircrew members engaged in combat and flying experiences in general.