Made with Words

Poets on Poetry

by May Swenson, Gardner McFall (Editor)

Made With Words collects prose by May Swenson (1919-89), whom critic and poet John Hollander has called "one of our few unquestionably major poets." Born in Logan, Utah, she spent most of her adult life living and writing in New York City. She was an editor for New Directions Paperbacks, and a writer-in-residence at numerous universities during the 1960s and 1970s. Throughout her long and illustrious career, Swenson produced nine volumes of verse, including New and Selected Things Taking Place and In Other Words: New Poems . She was a member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and received a multitude of grants and awards during her lifetime.
Made with Words includes a rich assortment of Swenson's prose, including several short stories, by turns amusing, provocative, and poetic, and inextricably bound with her poetic oeuvre; a one-act play entitled The Floor , produced in New York in the mid-sixties; interviews and book reviews that shed light on Swenson's poetic development as well as her literary and artistic tastes; and finally, a collection of Swenson's letters to the poet Elizabeth Bishop that reveal the intricacies of three decades of their personal and professional relationship. The critical and biographical introduction provides an engaging glimpse into the creative life and prose work of an important contemporary American poet.
Gardner McFall is Assistant Professor of Literature, Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. She is the author of The Pilot's Daughter ; Naming the Animals ; and Jonathan's Cloud .

264 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 1998

About the author

Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson was born in Logan, Utah to Swedish immigrant parents—and she grew up speaking Swedish at home. Swenson earned a BA from Utah State University and briefly worked as a reporter in Salt Lake City. She moved to New York City in the 1930s. Swenson is considered one of mid-twentieth-century America’s foremost poets.

Swenson’s poetry was widely praised for its precise and beguiling imagery, and for the quality of its personal and imaginative observations. Swenson’s ability to draw out the metaphysical implications of the material world were widely commented on; but she was also known for her lighthearted, even joyous, take on life.

Swenson left New York City in 1967, when she moved to Sea Cliff, Long Island where she lived with her partner, the author R.R. Knudson. During her prolific career, Swenson received numerous literary awards and nominations for her poetry. She taught and served as poet-in-residence at many institutions in both the United States and Canada, and she held fellowships from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. She was the recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award, the Bollingen Prize, and Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She received an honorary degree from Utah State University as well as their Distinguished Service Gold Medal. Swenson was a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1980-1989.

-- from The Poetry Foundation