Karen Swenson

American poet
The basics

Quick Facts

IntroAmerican poet
PlacesUnited States of America
isJournalist
Work fieldJournalism
Gender
Female
Birth29 July 1936
Age88 years
The details

Biography

Karen Swenson (born July 29, 1936 New York City) is an American poet and journalist.

Life

She grew up in Chappaqua, New York, and studied at Barnard College and New York University.

Swenson has been Poet-in-Residence at Skidmore College, the University of Idaho, Denver University, Clark University, Scripps College and Barnard College. She taught at City College, New York.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Beloit Poetry Journal, Paris Review, American Poetry Review, "Saturday Review", and "The New Yorker".

Awards

  • 1993 National Poetry Series, for The Landlady in Bangkok
  • Lannan Residency
  • Yaddo Residencies

Works

  • A daughter's latitude: new & selected poems. Copper Canyon Press. 1999. ISBN 978-1-55659-094-8. 
  • The landlady in Bangkok. Copper Canyon Press. 1994. ISBN 978-1-55659-067-2. 
  • A sense of direction. Smith. 1989. ISBN 978-0-912292-85-4. 
  • East-West: poems. Confluence Press. 1980. ISBN 978-0-917652-23-3. 
  • An attic of ideals. Doubleday. 1974. ISBN 978-0-385-08073-6. 

Stories

  • James O'Reilly, Larry Habegger, eds. (2002). "Roaches and Redheads". Travelers' Tales Thailand: True Stories. Travelers' Tales. ISBN 978-1-885211-75-0.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)

Anthologies

Edited

Reviews

For a poet, the value of travel has more to do with the self a writer brings to a place than any impression he or she takes from the landscape or the people there. Karen Swenson has traveled extensively over the past four decades, and in A Daughter's Latitude she reports not only on visits to countries like Malaysia and Thailand but also on her return trips to the provinces of childhood memory.

The contents of this page are sourced from Wikipedia article. The contents are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license.