|
|
May Swenson (1913 - 1989)
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
 Made
With Words by
May Swenson, Gardner McFall (Editor)
May Swenson (1913-1989) has long been a personal
favorite of mine. Much of her work is difficult to find, or out of
print. Gardner McFall, a poet herself,has done a wonderful job of
editing the prose, reviews, introductions and the correspondence
between Elizabeth Bishop(1913-1979) and May Swenson, although
there is much to be found in the St. Louis's, Washington
University Archives, where the bulk of May's papers are
housed,this is a generous selection.
I am hoping that the McFall book will set May's
publishers to consider a "Complete Works" of the
wonderful May Swenson. McFall, however, is to be applauded for her
rounding up and editing of these important prose selections. The
book, part of the prestigious "Poets on Poetry"series
from the University of Michigan Press, is a gift to both fans and
scholars alike. -- Anonymous Review
 Nature:
Poems Old and New by
May Swenson, Susan Mitchell
Nature, a major compendium of May
Swenson's poems, including ten that appeared first in this
collection, draws on nearly fifty years of work. "Surely no
one, scientist or poet," wrote former U.S. poet laureate
Howard Nemerov, "has seen things . . . so clearly as she, and
surely no one has made seeing and saying so nearly one."
The first major gathering of May Swenson's poems
in a decade, this posthumous collection concentrates on her nature
poems. Drawn from nearly fifty years of her work, Nature
contains 182 poems, many never before published. With Elizabeth
Bishop and Marianne Moore, May Swenson ranks among the foremost
poets of this century. All who love nature and poetry will relish
this work.
 May
Swenson : A Poet's Life in Photos by R. Rozanne
Knudson, Suzzanne Bigelow (Contributor), Richard Wilbur
(Introduction)
May Swenson was born in
Utah in 1913 to a Mormon family. She eventually moved to New York
to become a poet and a woman who loved women. She published more
than a dozen books, received awards from the MacArthur and
Guggenheim foundations and the National Endowment for the Arts,
and during her lifetime was one of America's most highly regarded
poets. For this book, R. R. "Zan" Knudson excerpted
family journals, photo albums, letters, and previously unpublished
poems to describe the life of the poet who was her partner of 23
years. This discreet volume respects Swenson's Mormon roots and
Utah State University Press, which published the book, by
refraining from referring to any of the women Swenson lived with
as her "lovers." Lesbian readers, however, will
recognize Swenson as a foremother. -- Amazon.com
|
|
Utah State University Press
This annual competition, named for May Swenson,
honors her as one of America's most provocative, insouciant, and
vital poets. In John Hollander's words, she was "one of our
few unquestionably major poets." During her long
career, May was loved and praised by writers from virtually every
major school of poetry. She left a legacy of nearly fifty years of
writing when she died in 1989. She is buried in Logan, Utah, her
hometown.
|
|
Excerpt:
May Swenson once said that her experience of
poetry is "based in a craving to get through the curtains of
things as they appear, to things as they are, and then into the
larger, wilder space of things as they are becoming." The
poet's task became, for her, a lifelong quest for a means of
interpreting "the vastness of the unknown beyond [one's]
consciousness." We hope the following poems reacquaint our
readers with the range and depth of her imagery, the energetic
optimism of her vision, and the tactile strength of her images...
This page hosts several poems.
|
|
From poets.org
Excerpt:
May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah, in 1919.
She attended Utah State University, Logan, and received a
bachelor's degree in 1939. She taught poetry at Bryn Mawr, the
University of North Carolina, the University of California at
Riverside, Purdue University and Utah State University and was an
editor at New Directions publishers from 1959 to 1966...
|
|
By May Swenson
From Nature:
Poems Old and New by May Swenson, published by
Houghton Mifflin Company. Copyright © 1994 the Literary Estate of
May Swenson.
|
|
Washington University's May Swenson Papers
contain manuscript and editorial material toward most of her books
including Another Animal (1954), A Cage of Spines
(1958), To Mix with Time: New and Selected Poems (1963),
and Half Sun Half Sleep (1967). This material includes
drafts of individual poems as well as letters to and from various
editors, friends, and readers. Swenson's correspondents include
John Hall Wheelock, and Burroughs Mitchell, but the most
fascinating portion of May Swenson's Papers is her correspondence
with the American poet Elizabeth Bishop. The two were close
friends and Washington University holds 268 of their letters
written from 1950 to 1979, the year of Bishop's death.
|
|
|
|
Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
U V
W X
Y Z
| Authors
Index | Scholars
Index |
|
|
