Barbara Guest

Barbara Guest, born Barbara Ann Pinson (September 6, 1920 – February 15, 2006), was an American poet and prose writer.

Barbara Guest
Guest during the video taping of "Add-Verse", 2003
Guest during the video taping of "Add-Verse", 2003
Born(1920-09-06)6 September 1920
Wilmington, North Carolina, United States
Died15 February 2006(2006-02-15) (aged 85)
Berkeley, California, United States
OccupationPoet
GenrePoetry, prose
Literary movementNew York School
Notable works"Herself Defined", "Fair Realism", "Forces of Imagination"
Notable awardsRobert Frost Medal (1999)

Guest was part of the first generation New York School of poets who often used words as painters use paint.[1] She wrote more than 20 books of poetry. She also wrote a novel, art criticism, essays, and plays.

Guest was born in Wilmington, North Carolina and raised in California. She went to college at UCLA and got a B.A. in 1943 from UC Berkeley. She worked in the editor's office at ARTnews magazine from 1951-1959.[2]

In 1999, she was awarded the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America.[3] She was also well known for her biography of the poet H.D., Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World.

Books

  • The Location of Things (1960)
  • Poems: The Location of Things, Archaics, The Open Skies (1962)
  • The Open Skies (1962)
  • The Blue Stairs (1968)
  • I Ching, with lithographs by Sheila Isham (1969).
  • Moscow Mansions (1973)
  • The Countess from Minneapolis (1976)
  • Seeking Air (1977; 1997; 2021)
  • The Türler Losses (1979)
  • Biography (1980)
  • Quilts (1981)
  • Herself Defined: The Poet H. D. and Her World (1984)
  • Musicality, with June Felter (1988)
  • Fair Realism (1989)
  • Defensive Rapture (1993)
  • The Altos, with artist Richard Tuttle (1993)
  • Selected Poems (1995)
  • Stripped Tales, featuring art by Anne Dunn (1995)
  • Quill Solitary, Apparition (1996)
  • Seeking Air (1997)
  • Etruscan Reader VI (with Robin Blaser and Lee Harwood) (1998)
  • Outside of This, That is (1999)
  • Strings, with artist Ann Slacik (1999)
  • The Luminous, with artist Jane Moorman (1999)
  • Rocks on a Platter (1999)
  • If So, Tell Me (1999)
  • The Confetti Trees (1999)
  • Symbiosis, with artist Laurie Reid (2000)
  • Miniatures and Other Poems (2002)
  • Forces of Imagination: Writing on Writing (2003)
  • Durer in the Window: Reflexions on Art (2003)
  • The Red Gaze (2005)
  • Fallschirme, Gebliebter. Ausgewählte Gedichte (2008)
  • The Collected Poems of Barbara Guest (2008)

References

  1. Fox, Margalit (2006-03-04). "Barbara Guest, Pioneering Poet of the New York School, Is Dead at 85" (in en-US). The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331 . https://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/04/books/barbara-guest-pioneering-poet-of-the-new-york-school-is-dead-at-85.html. Retrieved 2023-02-09. 
  2. Noel-Tod, Jeremy (2013). "Guest, Barbara". Oxford Reference - The Oxford Companion to Modern Poetry. Retrieved February 9, 2023.
  3. "Award Winners". Poetry Society of America. Retrieved 2023-02-09.

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