May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah. She earned a B.S. at Utah State University in 1939 and worked as an editor at New Directions Press between 1959 and 1966. She was a poet-in-residence at Purdue Uni...
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Critical Essay by William Stafford
No one today is more deft and lucky in discovering a poem than May Swenson. Her work [in Half Sun Half Sleep] often appears to be proceeding calmly, just descriptive...
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Critical Essay by Alicia Ostriker
Most humanists show very little curiosity about the physical world outside the self, and usually a positive antipathy to the mental processes we call scientificȂ...
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Critical Essay by Rosemary Johnson
These poems [in New and Selected Things Taking Place] mutter in the passive voice: "it is observed"; "it happens." The event, the text, s...
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Critical Essay by Anne Stevenson
[To describe her poems as clever and skeptical] is not to say that Miss Swenson has no heart, but that she keeps it strictly under the discipline of her brain. "...
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Critical Essay by Victor Howes
May Swenson's poems [in New and Selected Things Taking Place] aspire to the condition of jewels. At their crystalline best they are hard and bright, glinting of g...
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Critical Essay by Jascha Kessler
[May Swenson's New and Selected Things Taking Place] is obviously meant to stand as a capstone to her career as a poet. Sixty poems come from the years since 19...
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Critical Essay by Charles Saunders
The verse in May Swenson's "Snow in New York" which draws the speaker's reverie to its climax is the statement "Snow in New York i...
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Berryman is considered one of the most important modern American poets. His work developed from objective, classically controlled poetry into an esoteric, eclectic, and highly emotional expression of ...
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Stanford was an American poet, educator, and critic. In this essay, she discusses the roles of observation and description in Swenson's poetry.
May Swenson is the poet of the perceptible. No wr...
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Sullivan is an American educator, critic, and poet. In the following excerpt, she praises Iconographs: "These poems combine ecstasy with exactness, and speak the truth in truthful language. &#x...
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A feminist critic and poet, Ostriker has published numerous studies on the relationship between gender and literature. In the following excerpt, she discusses the feminist power of Swenson's po...
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An American poet, educator, and critic, Heller has published a study entitled Conviction's Net of Branches: Essays on the Objectivist Poets and Poetry (1984). In the following excerpt from a re...
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Collier is an American poet, educator, and critic. In the following excerpt, he admires the outlook expressed in In Other Words.
The familiar voice in May Swenson's In Other Words: New Poems sp...
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Hirsch is the author of Wild Gratitude (1986), which received The National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. Below, he lauds The Love Poems of May Swenson.
"Listen, there's just one ...
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A noted contemporary American poet, Corn has received praise for the informal yet controlled style of his verse, which synthesizes traditional and modern elements. In the following review, he finds ma...
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In the following essay, Russell compares Swenson to other women poets such as Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and Emily Dickinson and considers Swenson's refusal of the label "lesbian ...
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An American educator, poet, and critic, Schulman has served as the poetry editor of the journal Nation. Here, she gives an overview of Swenson's poetry, including her posthumous collections.
Th...
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In the following excerpt, Hammer extols the lyricism of Swenson's poems in the posthumous collection Nature.
May Swenson's Nature collects most of the major work of a master poet. The bo...
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Hentoff is an American novelist and critic. His nonfiction and young adult fiction reflect his passions for jazz, literature, and civil rights. In the following excerpt, he offers a favorable review o...
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A New England poet in the tradition of Robert Frost, Scott was a conventional lyricist who favored a straightforward, uncluttered style in his many biographical and story poems. In the following excer...
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Gibbs was an American poet. In this excerpt, she attempts to define the poetry of A Cage of Spines. Gibbs concludes her observations with a wish that Swenson would attempt more ambitious poetry.
[How]...
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Hecht is an American poet who is known for the elegant style, traditional form, and deep sense of tragedy that characterize his work. The recipient of numerous literary awards, he won a Pulitzer Prize...
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Recognized as a national authority on poetry, Kennedy is well respected as a poet for adults as well as children. His verse is written in traditional metric patterns and acknowledged for its amusing a...
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Howard is an American poet, critic, and translator who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1970 for his poetry collection Untitled Subjects (1969). In the following essay, he traces the poetic style evinced in Sw...
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In the following excerpt, Swenson discusses poetry as an art and compares poetry to science.
What is the experience of poetry? Choosing to analyze this experience for myself after an engrossment of ma...
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Early associated with the confessional school of poetry, Davison is an American poet whose first collection of verse, The Breaking of the Day (1964), won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award. In the...
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In the following excerpt, Berryman provides a primarily positive review of Another Animal.
[May Swenson is described] on the jacket [of Another Animal] as having come from Utah "to New York Cit...
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In the following review, Hirsch offers a highly laudatory assessment of The Love Poems of May Swenson.
"Listen, there's just one 'Don't,' one 'Keep Off,...
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In the following review, Earnshaw praises The Love Poems of May Swenson.
The posthumous publication of May Swenson's poems celebrating Eros adds luster to the reputation of a major American poe...
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In the following review, Corn applauds the poems in The Love Poems of May Swenson, which he asserts are, except one, all erotic in nature.
Maybe I had too high expectations for this collection when it...
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The following review offers a highly favorable assessment of The Complete Poems to Solve.
Included in this volume are seventy-two poems for young readers, many of which appeared in Poems to Solve. In ...
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In the following essay, Russell examines Swenson's poetry, focusing on the author's approach to and treatment of lesbian themes.
May Swenson, who died in 1989 at the age of seventy-six, ...
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In the following essay, Schulman explores Swenson's treatment of the themes of life, love, and death in her poetry.
The voice of May Swenson combines the directness of intimate speech and the u...
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In the following review, Gunter praises May Out West and Nature: Old and New, commending both Swenson's poetic voice and her technical mastery.
The latest two books released by the late Utah po...
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In the following excerpt from a review of poetry collections by five different authors, Gibbs characterizes A Cage of Spines as the best of the five volumes, but notes that Swenson could have been &#x...
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In the following excerpt from her Modern American Women Poets, Gould provides an overview of Swenson's life and career.
It has been said that some people are born disillusioned—in the be...
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In the following excerpt from a review of five books of poetry, Disch offers praise for In Other Words, noting especially Swenson's flair for writing poetry that deals with minutiae.
We pick th...
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In the following essay taken from his volume, The Electric Life, Birkerts explores Swenson's progression during her career from an emphasis on presenting detached, technically adroit poems trea...
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In the following obituary, Bernstein surveys Swenson's life and career.
May Swenson, a poet known for her cerebral, playful verse, and a recipient two years ago of a MacArthur Foundation Fellow...
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In the following essay, Van Duyn, who was a friend of Swenson, offers a tribute to Swenson, reflecting on both Swenson's personal attributes and on her poetry.
May Swenson twice warmly introduc...
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In the following excerpt, Collier applauds In Other Words: New Poems, asserting that the volume presents what he terms Swenson's "vision of incredible integrity."
The familiar voi...
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In the following essay, Wilbur commemorates Swenson's contributions to poetry, providing an overview of her life and career.
May Swenson was not much given to self-absorption or self-portraitur...
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May Swenson
