Three-time Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Edwin Arlington Robinson started his poet's life in Gardiner, where he -- and his ability to craft extraordinary works about ordinary people -- grew.

This week, prominent literary biographer Scott Donaldson, author of a comprehensive new biography on the dark, accomplished poet, is bringing Robinson home.

Donaldson, whose "Edwin Arlington Robinson: A Poet's Life," was released in February, will speak at Robinson- related events this week at several central Maine sites, culminating in readings and other events in the city where the poet spent his formative years.

Donaldson, author of biographies on such towering literary figures as Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and John Cheever, first contacted Danny D. Smith, a Gardiner historian who has studied much of Robinson's work, seven years ago, looking for information on Robinson.

Donaldson visited Gardiner and Colby College in Waterville, which has perhaps the world's largest collection of Robinson's work, in researching his book. With Smith's help, he also gained access to previously sealed letters and other documents held by Harvard University.

Those documents, Smith said, give new insight into Robinson and his family.

"I feel this is really going to be the definitive biography of all time," Smith said. "This book tells it all."

Donaldson's book is the third about Robinson released over the last year.

While Robinson struggled with poverty in his early years, he had achieved success as a poet later in his life.

However, Smith noted Robinson's popularity as a writer seemed to be in decline for many years. He's hopeful the new books will renew interest in Robinson, one of two writers with Gardiner ties to win Pulitzer Prizes. The other was Laura E. Richards.

"We're working hard to try to bring him back into people's conversations," Smith said. "If anything is going to bring Robinson back onto the radar screen, it's Donaldson's book."

Robinson is best known for works such as "Richard Cory" and "Miniver Cheevy," and his "Tilbury Town" poems were, arguably, based upon people he encountered in his 28 years in Gardiner.

Robinson himself disputed that was the case, but fellow author Richards wrote of her colleague in her memoir of him that he acknowledged Gardiner "may be responsible, in a shadowy way, for Tilbury Town."

"Robinson's community certainly impacted his writing," said Anne Davis, director of Gardiner Public Library, which is host to multiple related events Friday and Saturday.

Robinson used traditional forms of poetry but focused much of his attention on nontraditional literary topics, often writing about otherwise ordinary, working-class people and events.

Robinson's grandnephew, David Nivison, whom Smith said is believed to be the only surviving person to have known Robinson personally, is expected to participate in events at Colby Wednesday and in Gardiner Saturday.

Robinson, who lived from 1869 to 1935, was born at Head Tide in the town of Alna, but he and his family moved to Gardiner when he was 18 months old.

In the 1940s, then-Colby professor Carl Weber developed links to the Robinson family that yielded an extensive collection of Robinson's materials, including 1,200 unpublished letters, that eventually found a home in special collections at Colby College. Colby is the location of a reading and reception with Donaldson Wednesday at 4 p.m.

Patricia Burdick, special collections librarian at Colby, said even she gained new insight into Robinson from Donaldson's book.

"I've learned a lot from (Donaldson's) interpretations," she said.

A virtual tour of Robinson-related sites in Gardiner is available at http://www.earobinson.com

A full day of readings and walking tours of Robinson-related sites in Gardiner Saturday concludes with an open house at Robinson's childhood home at 67 Lincoln Avenue from 1 to 4 p.m., hosted by the home's current owners, the Hanley family.

The home on the National Register of Historic Places.

Keith Edwards -- 621-5647

kedwards@centralmaine.com