May Swenson

Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson (May 28, 1913 in Logan, Utah – December 4, 1989 in Bethany Beach, Delaware) was an American poet and playwright. She is considered one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century, as often hailed by the noted critic Harold Bloom. Much of her later poetry works were devoted to children (e.g. the collection Iconographs, 1970). She also translated the work of contemporary Swedish poets, including the selected poems of Tomas Tranströmer.

Life
The first child of Margaret and Dan Arthur Swenson, she grew up as the eldest of 10 children in a Mormon household where Swedish was spoken regularly and English was a second language.

Personal Life
Swenson attended Utah State University in Logan in the class of 1934, where she received a bachelor's degree. She taught poetry at as poet-in-residence at Bryn Mawr, the University of North Carolina, the University of California at Riverside, Purdue University and Utah State University. From 1959 to 1966 she worked as an editor at New Directions publishers. Swenson left New Directions Press in 1966 in an effort to focus completely on her own writing. She also served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1980 until her death in 1989.

In 1936 Swenson worked as an editor and ghostwriter for a man called "Plat," who became her boyfriend. "I think I should like to have a son by Plat," she wrote in her diary, "but I would not like to be married to any man, but only be myself."

Her poems were published in Antaeus, The Atlantic Monthly, Carleton Miscellany, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Saturday Review, Parnassus and Poetry. Her poem Question was also published in Stephenie Meyer's book The Host.

Writing
Swenson's work shows strong use of imagery and use of eroticism. She continually questions existence and writes much on the topic of love. Her love poems concerned "human nature, the natural world, geography, and invention. They are poems of intense love between women, written at a time when that genre was rare in poetry" (Schulman). Although she did not go out of her way to make known her lesbian sexual identity, she also did not hide it. In her career she has turned down publication offers to use her poetry in a compilation of lesbian writing, yet she did agree in one case, which she explained as a tasteful collection she did not mind contributing to. Her poetry collection The Complete Love Poems of May Swenson focused mostly on poems in which sexual imagery is especially abundant. One example, the poem "In the Yard" reads:


 * You are, so yummy, brought some fruit. Split me an apple. We'll get red, white halves each, our juice on the Indian spread. (Nature 94)

Swenson's style is described as rhythmic. Her creative style merges in her writing with her interest in plant and animal behavior with works such as "The Cross Spider". As well as natural themes, some of her work focuses on scientific research, for example the exploration of space. Fascinated by perception, much of Swenson's work contains key themes of how this human perception can be found in landscapes and wider contexts. One source comments that her use of nature and sexuality are not used separately, but that nature is something we are all part of, and in that commonality we share energy derived from sexuality.

Recognition
She received much recognition for her work. Some of which include:
 * American Introductions Prize in 1955;
 * William Rose Benet Prize of the Poetry Society of America in 1959;
 * Longview Foundation Award in 1959;
 * National Institute of Arts and Letters Award in 1960;
 * Brandeis University Creative Arts Award in 1967;
 * Lucy Martin Donnelly Award of Bryn Mawr College in 1968;
 * Shelley Poetry Award in 1968
 * Guggenheim fellowship in 1959,
 * Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship in 1960,
 * Ford Foundation grant in 1964
 * Bollingen Prize for poetry in 1981,
 * MacArthur Fellowship in 1987.

Working with the Barney, Utah State University (USU) has created the "May Swenson Project". Supported by students and teachers, it has publicized Swenson's work at USU, as well as her influence across the nation. In her name, USU has dedicated a May Swenson room in the English Department and another in the USU Merrill-Cazier Library. Funds are being sought to establish an endowed chair in Swenson's name.

The May Swenson Poetry Award, sponsored by Utah State University Press, is a competitive prize granted annually to an outstanding collection of poetry in English. Open to published and unpublished writers, with no limitation on subject, the competition honors May Swenson as one of America's most vital and provocative poets of the twentieth century. Judges for the competition have included Mary Oliver, Maxine Kumin, John Hollander, Mark Doty, Alice Quinn, Harold Bloom, Garrison Keillor, and others from the first tier of American letters.

http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/

Poetry
anyalysis of baseball
 * Another Animal (Scribner, 1954);
 * A Cage of Spines (Rinehart, 1958);
 * To Mix with Time: New and Selected Poems (Scribner, 1963);
 * Poems to Solve (for children "14-up") (Scribner, 1966);
 * Half Sun Half Sleep (Scribner, 1967);
 * The Shape of Death;
 * More Poems to Solve (Scribner, 1968);
 * Iconographs (Scribner, 1970);
 * New & Selected Things Taking Place (Little, Brown, 1978);
 * In Other Words (Knopf, 1987).\

Prose

 * The Contemporary Poet as Artist and Critic (1964)
 * The Contemporary Poet as Artist and Critic (1964)

Translated

 * Windows and Stones: Selected Poems of Tomas Tranströmer (1972)

Online Texts

 * A 'Dangerous Game of Change': Images of Desire in the Love Poems of May Swenson.
 * Life's miracles: The poetry of May Swenson.
 * In Other Words (Book) By: Mulleneaux, Lisa. Library Journal, 09/15/87, Vol.112 Issue 15, p85, 1/8p; (AN 7469252)