Skip to content
Contact Us

General Information

Bio

(1913 or 1919-1989) Poet, critic, scholar, editor, lecturer, playwright. May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah. She got her bachelor of science degree from Utah State University and then moved to New York City. Swenson won the 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. Also she won a Guggenheim Fellowship (1959), a Ford Foundation grant (1964), the Bollingen Prize for poetry (1984), and a MacArthur Fellowship (1987).

Full Name

May Swenson

Locations

New York

Author's Timeline

Unknown

RESIDENCE

Swenson lived in New York City.

1913

BIRTH

Anna Thilda May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah, in either 1913 or 1919.

1954

LITWORK

Another Animal
Scribner.

Collection of poetry.

1958

LITWORK

A Cage of Spines
Rinehart.

Collection of poetry.

1959

RESIDENCE

Swenson worked for New Directions publishing company as an editor between 1959 and 1966.

1963

LITWORK

To Mix with Time: New and Selected Poems
Scribner.


Collection of poetry.

1964

LITWORK

The Contemporary Poet as Artist and Critic


Nonfiction.

1966

LITWORK

Poems to Solve (for children "14-up")
Scribner.

Collection of poetry.

1967

LITWORK

Half Sun Half Sleep
Scribner.

Collection of poetry.

1968

LITWORK

More Poems to Solve
Scribner.

Collection of poetry.

1970

LITWORK

Iconographs
Scribner.

Collection of poetry.

1978

LITWORK

New and Selected Things Taking Place
Little, Brown.

Collection of poetry.

1987

LITWORK

In Other Words
Knopf.

Collection of poetry.

1989

DEATH

May Swenson died in Ocean View, Delaware, in 1989.

Found Wrong Information?

Contact us or use our form to request an update to your information or request an update on behalf of the author.

Have a Correction? pencil Contact Us paper-airplane