Hatlen, Burton

Burton Norval Hatlen (April 9, 1936 – January 21, 2008) was an American literary scholar and professor at the University of Maine. Hatlen worked closely with Carroll F. Terrell, an Ezra Pound scholar and co-founder of the National Poetry Foundation, to build the Foundation into an internationally known institution. Hatlen was seen as a mentor by several of his former students, most notably author Stephen King and his wife, Tabitha King. In an afterword to his novel Lisey's Story, King paid tribute to Hatlen: Burt was the greatest English teacher I ever had. It was he who first showed me the way to the pool, which he called “the language-pool, the myth-pool, where we all go down to drink.” That was in 1968. I have trod the path that leads there often in the years since, and I can think of no better place to spend one’s days; the water is still sweet, and the fish still swim.