Carolyn Kizer’s Followers (32)

Carolyn Kizer

Born

Spokane, Washington, The United States

Genre

Poetry

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Poet, essayist, and translator Carolyn Kizer was born in 1925 in Spokane, Washington. Raised by a prominent lawyer and highly educated mother, Kizer’s childhood was suffused with poetry. Of her development as a poet, she noted to the Poetry Society of America: “My parents were both romantics: father favored the poems of [John] Keats; mother went for [Walt] Whitman. No evening of my childhood passed without my being read to. But I think my choices of [Gertrude] Stein and [George Bernard] Shaw show that my tastes were different. I remember that when I was eleven or twelve I came storming home from school demanding, ‘Why didn't you ever tell me about [Alexander] Pope and [John] Dryden?’ They were stunned. Our library, copious as it was, didn't Poet, essayist, and translator Carolyn Kizer was born in 1925 in Spokane, Washington. Raised by a prominent lawyer and highly educated mother, Kizer’s childhood was suffused with poetry. Of her development as a poet, she noted to the Poetry Society of America: “My parents were both romantics: father favored the poems of [John] Keats; mother went for [Walt] Whitman. No evening of my childhood passed without my being read to. But I think my choices of [Gertrude] Stein and [George Bernard] Shaw show that my tastes were different. I remember that when I was eleven or twelve I came storming home from school demanding, ‘Why didn't you ever tell me about [Alexander] Pope and [John] Dryden?’ They were stunned. Our library, copious as it was, didn't contain the works of either. These were lasting influences. I have continued to prefer, and write, poems that have what you might call ‘a sting in the tail.’ Add Catullus and Juvenal. I adored wit, irony, and intellectual precision.” Kizer’s work is known for just those traits. From her early poems in The Ungrateful Garden (1961) to the Pulitzer-prize winning Yin: New Poems (1984) to such later works as Pro Femina (2000), which satirizes liberated women writers by mimicking the hexameter used by the ancient misogynist poet Juvenal, and her retrospective Calm, Cool, and Collected: Poems 1960-2000 (2001), Kizer’s work has received acclaim for its intellectual rigor, formal mastery, and willingness to engage with political realities. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, “Carolyn Kizer is a kind of institution... For over 40 years, she's made poems with a stern work ethic of literary thought and linguistic scrupulousness.” In an interview with Allan Jalon for the Los Angeles Times, Kizer described her own style: “I’m not a formalist, not a confessional poet, not strictly a free-verse poet.” Jalon described Kizer as, “Tough without being cold, sometimes satirical (she’s a great admirer of Alexander Pope),” and noted that “her work expresses a worldly largeness that repeatedly focuses on the points at which lives meet. ‘That’s my subject,’” concluded Kizer. “No matter how brief an encounter you have with anybody, you both change.” ...more

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Carolyn Kizer’s books

Average rating: 4.04 · 635 ratings · 84 reviews · 46 distinct works • Similar authors

	Mermaids in the Basement 3.80 avg rating — 56 ratings — published 1984 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Cool, Calm, and Collected: Poems 1960-2000 3.90 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 2000 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Yin 3.65 avg rating — 52 ratings — published 1984 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	One Hundred Great Poems By Women really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1998 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Nearness of You 3.57 avg rating — 21 ratings — published 1986 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Harping On: Poems, 1985-1995 3.22 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 1996 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	PRO FEMINA (Roy Fox Memorial Chapbook Series, #4) 4.20 avg rating — 10 ratings — published 2000 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Proses: On Poems and Poets really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 8 ratings — published 1993	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Ungrateful Garden 4.29 avg rating — 7 ratings — published 1999 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Carrying Over 3.83 avg rating — 6 ratings — published 1988 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars