Barbara Guest

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Barbara Guest
Born	6 September 1920(1920-09-06) Wilmington, North Carolina
Died	15 February 2006 (aged 85) Berkeley, California
Occupation	American poet

Barbara Guest née Barbara Ann Pinson (6 September, 1920 – 15 February, 2006) was an American poet and critic most often associated with the New York School.

Born in Wilmington, North Carolina and raised in California, Guest earned a B.A. in General Curriculum-Humanities in 1943 at UC Berkeley. She spent years in New York City where she became involved with the New York School Poets. She was also well-known for her book on the poet H.D., Herself Defined: The Poet H.D. and Her World (1984). In 1999, she was awarded the Frost Medal for Lifetime Achievement by the Poetry Society of America.

[edit] Publications

“To speak with Barbara Guest about poetry was always to be in the presence of a fiercely uncompromised vision of the art and its obligations. Her insights continually astonished me. They were beholden to no one. And the work itself, of a lyric intelligence entirely her own. For whatever reasons, and I can sadly imagine many, it has not received its full due, but it will. The music insists.”

Michael Palmer[1]

• The Location of Things (Tibor de Nagy, 1960)
• Poems: The Location of Things, Archaics, The Open Skies (Doubleday & Company, 1962)
• The Open Skies (1962)
• The Blue Stairs (Corinth Books, 1968)
• Moscow Mansions (Viking, 1973)
• The Countess from Minneapolis (Burning Deck Press, 1976)
• Seeking Air (Black Sparrow, 1977; reprint, Los Angeles: Sun & Moon Press, 1997)
• The Türler Losses (Montréal: Mansfield Book Mart, 1979)
• Biography (Burning Deck, 1980)
• Quilts (Vehicle Edition, 1981)
• Herself Defined: The Poet H. D. and Her World (Doubleday & Company, 1984)
• Fair Realism (Sun & Moon Press, 1989)
• Musicality (1988)
• Defensive Rapture (Sun & Moon Press, 1993)
• Selected Poems (Sun & Moon Press, 1995)
• Quill Solitary, Apparition (The Post-Apollo Press, 1996)
• Seeking Air (Sun & Moon Press, 1997)
• Etruscan Reader VI (with Robin Blaser and Lee Harwood)(1998)
• Rocks on a Platter (Wesleyan, 1999)
• If So, Tell Me (Reality Street Editions, UK, 1999)
• The Confetti Trees (Sun & Moon, 1999)
• Symbiosis (Berkeley: Kelsey Street Press, 2000)
• Miniatures and Other Poems (Wesleyan University Press, 2002)
• Forces of Imagination: Writing on Writing (Kelsey Street Press, 2003)
• Durer in the Window: Reflexions on Art (Roof Books, 2003)
• The Red Gaze (Wesleyan University Press, 2005)

[edit] External links

• Barbara Guest site at Electronic Poetry Center
• Barbara Guest site at Jacket Magazine
• Poet of the New York School, Is Dead at 85 NY Times obituary
• "The Gendered Marvelous: Barbara Guest, surrealism, and feminist reception" essay on Guest by Rachel Blau DuPlessis
• When I Say the Word Home, I Almost Whisper It Tribute & Remembrance on the passing of Guest
• Barbara Guest Memory Bank A gathering of brief memoirs and BG poems (selected by her readers) to honor the life and writing of Barbara Guest
• Review of 'The Red Gaze' at poetry magazine "Intercapillary Space"

[edit] References

1. ^ "When I Say The Word Home, I Almost Whisper It"