Mona Van Duyn, 83, Suburbia's Poet, Dies

Her death was announced by Alfred A. Knopf, which published her ''Selected Poems'' two years ago. Her first book in nine years, it includes nearly half of the poems published in her previous eight volumes, starting with ''Valentines to the Wide World'' in 1959.

Knopf said Ms. Van Duyn (pronounced dine) had recently been found to have bone cancer.

To readers unfamiliar with her work, ''Selected Poems'' presented a generous and judicious sampling of a long and successful career, Brian Henry wrote in The New York Times Book Review.

Ms. Van Duyn was selected by the Library of Congress in 1992 to serve a term as the United States poet laureate. She was the sixth laureate and the first woman to be chosen.

She also had an academic career, teaching at the University of Louisville, in Kentucky, and at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as at writing seminars and conferences.

Between ''Valentines'' and ''Selected Poems,'' she also published, among others, ''A Time of Bees'' (1964); ''Letters From a Father, and Other Poems'' (1982); ''If It Be Not I: Collected Poems 1959-1982'' (1992), which included much of her earlier work; and ''Firefall'' (1992), which remains in print at Knopf.

•	Mona Van Duyn, 83, Suburbia's Poet, Dies New York Times, Saturday, Dec. 4, 2004 Byline: Wolfgang Saxon

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