Anne Stevenson
Encyclopedia
Anne Stevenson is an American-British poet and writer.
met at a Cincinnati High School. They were living in Cambridge
, England
, where Charles was studying philosophy under I. A. Richards and Wittgenstein, when their first daughter, Anne was born. The family returned to America when Anne was six months old, moving to New Haven, her father going on to teach at universities including Harvard and Yale. Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p185 She was raised in New England, the eldest of three daughters and was educated in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father was a professor of philosophy.Stevenson's website Her father was a devoted pianist and lover of poetry and her mother wrote fiction and was a talented storyteller. Stevenson learnt piano and cello and she assumed until she was 19 that she would be a professional musician. She studied music and languages, at the University of Michigan and here decided that she would be a writer. Obtaining her bachelors degree in 1954 and graduating with honours, she returned to the UK where she has lived most of her life.
Stevenson married a childhood friend but her romantic ideals dissolved and the marriage was not a success. She notes that "it took me two unhappy marriages and three children to make me reconsider my assumptions."Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p186 In the 1960s she lived and wrote in Cambridge, Glasgow, Dundee and Oxford. She was writer in residence at the University of Dundee and co-founded Other Poetry (magazine) with Evangeline Patterson. In 1979, with Michael Farley, she started The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye and in 1982 she moved to Sunderland, then Durham, where she now lives with her husband Peter Lucas. As of 2011 she had six grandchildren.
Stevenson is the author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, of some books of essays and literary criticism, of a controversial biography of the American poet Sylvia Plath
, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (1989), and two critical studies of Elizabeth Bishop
.
Alfred Hickling at the Guardian reviewed Stevenson's work:
Life
Stevenson's parents Louise Destler Stevenson and C.L. StevensonCharles Stevenson
Charles Leslie Stevenson was an American analytic philosopher best known for his work in ethics and aesthetics....
met at a Cincinnati High School. They were living in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, where Charles was studying philosophy under I. A. Richards and Wittgenstein, when their first daughter, Anne was born. The family returned to America when Anne was six months old, moving to New Haven, her father going on to teach at universities including Harvard and Yale. Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p185 She was raised in New England, the eldest of three daughters and was educated in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where her father was a professor of philosophy.Stevenson's website Her father was a devoted pianist and lover of poetry and her mother wrote fiction and was a talented storyteller. Stevenson learnt piano and cello and she assumed until she was 19 that she would be a professional musician. She studied music and languages, at the University of Michigan and here decided that she would be a writer. Obtaining her bachelors degree in 1954 and graduating with honours, she returned to the UK where she has lived most of her life.
Stevenson married a childhood friend but her romantic ideals dissolved and the marriage was not a success. She notes that "it took me two unhappy marriages and three children to make me reconsider my assumptions."Couzyn, Jeni. Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe. 1985 p186 In the 1960s she lived and wrote in Cambridge, Glasgow, Dundee and Oxford. She was writer in residence at the University of Dundee and co-founded Other Poetry (magazine) with Evangeline Patterson. In 1979, with Michael Farley, she started The Poetry Bookshop in Hay-on-Wye and in 1982 she moved to Sunderland, then Durham, where she now lives with her husband Peter Lucas. As of 2011 she had six grandchildren.
Stevenson is the author of over a dozen volumes of poetry, of some books of essays and literary criticism, of a controversial biography of the American poet Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath
Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...
, Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath (1989), and two critical studies of Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop
Elizabeth Bishop was an American poet and short-story writer. She was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1949 to 1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner in 1956 and a National Book Award Winner for Poetry in 1970. Elizabeth Bishop House is an artists' retreat in Great Village, Nova Scotia...
.
Alfred Hickling at the Guardian reviewed Stevenson's work:
To arrive at a true understanding of Anne Stevenson's poetry, you have to go deep. In fact, the Deep is a very good place to start. Jutting into the Humber estuary like a vast steel fin, the Deep is Hull's impressive new aquatic attraction - where you expect to find tropical fish rather than topical poetry - yet the first thing the visitor sees, before descending to the bottom of Europe's deepest tank, is a line by Stevenson: "The sea is as near as we come to another world."
Awards
- 1955 Major Hopwood Award for Poetry
- 1990 Athena Alumnae Award from the University of Michigan.
- 1995 Cholmondeley Award
- 2002 inaugural winner of the Northern Rock Foundation Writer's Award
- 2007 Lannan Lifetime Achievement Award
- 2007 The Neglected Masters Award from the Poetry Foundation of America
- 2007 Taylor-Aiken Poet of the Year award from the University of the South in Tennessee
- 2008 Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the University of Michigan.
Books
- Living in America: Poems. Ann Arbor, MI: Generation Press, 1965.
- Elizabeth Bishop. New York: Twayne, 1966; London: Collins, 1967.
- Reversals. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1969. ISBN 9780819510471
- Travelling Behind Glass: Selected Poems, 1963-1973. London & New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
- The French Inheritance, Putnam, 1974, ISBN 9780399112713
- Correspondences: A Family History in Letters. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1974; London: Oxford University Press, 1974. ISBN 9780819540737
- Cliff Walk: A Poem, with a drawing by Anne Newnham. Richmond, Surrey: Keepsake PressKeepsake PressThe Keepsake Press was a private press founded by English writer Roy Lewis. The press published more than 100 books and chapbooks using letterpress techniques. It ceased to operate in 1996 when Lewis died. Its archive is now housed at Reading University...
, 1977. 180 copies. - Enough of Green. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
- A Morden Tower Reading. Newcastle upon Tyne: Morden Tower, 1977.
- Sonnets for Five Seasons. Herefordshire: Five Seasons Press, 1979. 250 copies.
- Turkish Rondo, Morrow, 1981 ISBN 9780688006389
- Green Mountain, Black Mountain. Boston: Rowan Tree Press, 1982.
- Minute by Glass Minute. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. ISBN 9780192119476
- New Poems. Leamington Spa: Bath Place Community Arts Press, 1982. 100 copies.
- A Legacy. Durham: Taxus, 1983. 350 copies.
- Making Poetry. Oxford: Pisces Press, 1983. 200 copies.
- Black Grate Poems. Oxford: Inky Parrot Press, 1984. 360 copies.
- The Fiction-makers. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. ISBN 9780192119728
- Selected Poems, by Frances Bellerby, edited by Stevenson London: Enitharmon Press, 1986.
- Winter Time. London: Mid-Northumberland Arts Group, 1986.
- Selected Poems, 1956-1986. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987. ISBN 9780192820624
- 1985 Anthology: The Observer and Ronald Duncan Foundation International Poetry Competition, ed. with Amy ClampittAmy Clampitt-Life:Amy Clampitt was born on June 15, 1920 of Quaker parents, and brought up in New Providence, Iowa. In the American Academy of Arts and Letters and at nearby Grinnell College she began a study of English literature that eventually led her to poetry. She graduated from Grinnell College, and from...
and Craig RaineCraig RaineCraig Raine is an English poet and critic born in Bishop Auckland, County Durham, England. Along with Christopher Reid, he is the best-known exponent of Martian poetry.-Life:...
. Beaworthy: Arvon Foundation, 1987. - Bitter Fame: A Life of Sylvia Plath London: Viking, 1989; Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1989. ISBN 9780395453742
- The Other House. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990. ISBN 9780192827395
- Four and a Half Dancing Men. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 9780192831644
- The Gregory Anthology 1991-1993, edited by Stevenson and Dannie Abse. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1994.
- The Collected Poems of Anne Stevenson, 1955-1995. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
- Five Looks at Elizabeth Bishop. London: Bellew, 1998. ISBN 9781852247256
- Between the Iceberg and the Ship: Selected Essays. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998.
- Granny Scarecrow. Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2000.
- A Report from the Border: New & Rescued Poems, Bloodaxe, 2003, ISBN 9781852246167
- Poems 1955-2005. Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2005. ISBN 9781852247218
- A Lament For The Makers (Clutag PressClutag PressThe Clutag Press was established in 2000 as a venture by Andrew McNeillie to issue Clutag Poetry Leaflets, by established and emerging poets. In 2004, it received backing from The Christopher Tower Fund...
, 2006) - Stone Milk. Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2007.
- Selected Poems edited with an introduction by Andrew MotionAndrew MotionSir Andrew Motion, FRSL is an English poet, novelist and biographer, who presided as Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009.- Life and career :...
, Library of America, 2008