Quick Facts
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.
Anthologies
- Hilda Raz, ed. (2001). "I Have Lost the Address of my Country". Best of Prairie schooner: fiction and poetry. Translator Hilda Raz. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0-8032-8972-7.
Edited
- Sarah M. Anderson, Karen Swenson, eds. (2002). Cold counsel: women in Old Norse literature and mythology : a collection of essays. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-8153-1966-5.
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.