Josephine Jacobsen



Josephine Jacobsen (19 August 1908 – 9 July 2003) was an American poet, short story writer, and critic, born in Canada. She was appointed the twenty-first Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1971.

Life
Born in Cobourg, Ontario, Canada, she moved with her family to New York at a young age. When she was fourteen, she moved to Maryland where she lived for the rest of her life. Jacobsen served as poetry consultant to the Library of Congress from 1971 to 1973 and as honorary consultant in American letters from 1973 to 1979. She served as member of both the literature panel for the National Endowment of the Arts and of the poetry committee of Folger Library.

She was a prolific writer of poems and short-stories into her ninth decade. Joseph Brodsky praised her poetry for its "reserve, stoic timbre, and its high precision" while William Meredith called her "post-cocious" for her prolific writing late in life.

Jacobsen is the author of several collections of poetry and prose. Among her awards are an Academy of American Poets fellowship and the 1997 Poets' Prize for In the Crevice of Time. She received honorary doctorates from Goucher College, The College of Notre Dame in Maryland, Towson State University, and Johns Hopkins University. She was inducted into The American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1994 and received the Robert Frost Medal for her lLifetime of achievement in poetry.

Jacobsen was also a fan of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team and wrote poems on her love of baseball.

Publications
SHORT STORIES OTHER
 * 1940 Let Each Man Remember
 * 1953 The Human Climate: New Poems
 * 1966 The Animal Inside
 * 1974 The Shade-Seller: New and Selected Poems
 * 1981 The Chinese Insomniacs: New Poems
 * 1987 The Sisters: New and Selected Poems
 * 1995 In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems
 * 1997 The Instant of Knowing: Selected Prose
 * 2008 Contents of a Minute (Chapbook)
 * Let Each Man Remember, Kaleidograph Press (Dallas), 1940.
 * For the Unlost, Contemporary Poetry, 1946.
 * The Human Climate: New Poems, Contemporary Poetry, 1953.
 * The Animal Inside, Ohio University Press (Athens, OH), 1966.
 * (Editor) From Anne to Marianne: Some American Women Poets, Library of Congress (Washington, DC), 1972, reprinted as Two Lectures: Leftovers: A Care Package by William Stafford. From Anne to Marianne: Some Women in American Poetry by Josephine Jacobsen, Library of Congress, 1973.
 * The Instant of Knowing, Library of Congress, 1974, reprinted as The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criticism, and Occasional Prose, edited by Elizabeth Spires, University of Michigan Press, 1997.
 * The Shade-Seller: New and Selected Poems, Doubleday (New York City), 1974.
 * One Poet's Poetry, Agnes Scott College, 1975.
 * The Chinese Insomniacs: New Poems, University of Pennsylvania Press (Philadelphia), 1981.
 * The Sisters: New and Selected Poems, Bench Press (Oakland, CA), 1987.
 * Distances, Bucknell University Press (Cranbury, NJ), 1992.
 * Collected Poems, Johns Hopkins University Press (Baltimore), 1995.
 * In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
 * In the Crevice of Time: New and Collected Poems, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
 * A Walk with Raschid and Other Stories, Jackpine (Winston-Salem, NC), 1978.
 * Adios, Mr. Moxley: Thirteen Stories, Jackpine, 1986.
 * On the Island: New & Selected Stories, Ontario Review Press, 1989.
 * What Goes without Saying: Collected Stories of Josephine Jacobsen, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996.
 * (With William R. Mueller) The Testament of Samuel Beckett (dramatic criticism), Hill & Wang (New York, NY), 1964.
 * (With Mueller) Ionesco and Genet: Playwrights of Silence (dramatic criticism), Hill & Wang, 1968.
 * Selected Poems (recording), Watershed, 1977.
 * Substance of Things Hoped For, Doubleday, 1987.
 * The Poet and the Poem (recording), Library of Congress, 1990.