 Ferry was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1998, and he is a fellow of the Academy of American Poets.In 1958, Ferry married the distinguished literary scholar Anne Ferry (died 2006), they had two children, Elizabeth, an anthropologist, and Stephen, a photojournalist.Before moving to his current home in Brookline, Massachusetts, Ferry lived across the Charles River in Cambridge, in the house where 19th century journalist and women's rights advocate Margaret Fuller lived before she joined the Brook Farm community.