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May Swenson addendum, 1932-1997

Overview of the Collection

Title
May Swenson addendum
Dates
1932-1997 (inclusive)
Quantity
19 boxes, (9.25 linear feet)
Collection Number
UUS_COLL MSS 485
Summary
This collection contains personal papers, professional papers, writings, and audio recordings from May Swenson, a nationally-recognized poet who lived much of her life in Sea Cliff, New York, but was originally from Logan, Utah. It is an addendum to the May Swenson papers, Coll Mss 282.
Repository
Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections and Archives Division
Special Collections & Archives
Merrill-Cazier Library
Utah State University
Logan, UT
84322-3000
Telephone: 4357978248
Fax: 4357972880
scweb@usu.edu
Access Restrictions

No restrictions on use, except: not available through interlibrary loan.

Languages
English
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Biographical Note

May Swenson was born on May 28, 1913, in Logan, Utah, the daughter of Swedish immigrants. (Her father, Dan Swenson, was a professor of mechanical engineering at Utah State University.) Following her graduation from USU in 1934 she took a job as a reporter for the Deseret News. A year later she moved to New York City where she worked in a variety of jobs, including as a stenographer, until she became the editor for New Directions Press in 1959. In 1966 Swenson quit working as an editor in order to devote herself full time to writing. For the remainder of her life she lived in Sea Cliff, New York. She died on December 4, 1989, and was buried in Logan.

Swenson's trademark was her use of complex wordplay in her poems, which frequently took the form of riddles or unusual arrangements of the words on the page. These "iconographs" often were arranged to resemble the shape of the poem's subject. Frequently classified as a nature poet, Swenson received much praise for her descriptions of natural phenomena and her sensory tone. Her chief themes were animal and human behavior, sexuality, death, and the nature of art and perception. Swenson's poetry has often been compared to the writings of Elizabeth Bishop, e.e. cummings, and Gertrude Stein. Over the course of her career, Swenson published seven volumes of poetry (see list below). In addition to her poetry, Swenson also wrote three books of poems for children, a play, three short stories, and a book of translated poems by the Swedish author, Tomas Tranströmer. Several additional volumes of Swenson poetry have been published posthumously.

May Swenson received a wide variety of recognitions and honors during her career, including serving as poet-in-residence at several universities in the United States and Canada during the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was the recipient of Guggenheim, Ford, Rockefeller, and MacArthur fellowships and a National Endowment for the Arts grant. In 1972 she received a medal from the International Poetry Forum for her translation of Tranströmer. Swenson also received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, the Bollingen Prize from Yale University, and an Award in Literature from the National Institute of Arts and Letters. She was also elected a member of the latter organization, as well as the Academy of American Poets of which she later served as chancellor. In 1967 she received a Distinguished Service Gold Medal from Utah State University, and in 1987 an honorary doctor of letters.

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Content Description

Like its sister collection, the May Swenson papers (COLL MSS 282), the May Swenson addendum has little or no original order left due to the piecemeal nature in which it was acquired. It was organized to mirror the order of the earlier collection, with three broad series containing the bulk of the manuscript materials: I. Personal, II. Professional, and III. Writings. A fourth series was added to accommodate a large number of audio recordings.

Series I contains family correspondence, autobiographical writings by Swenson, items pertaining to Swenson's death, and Zan Knudsen's notes for her Swenson biography. Series II contains professional correspondence, awards and honors, publicity, interviews and card files, as well as writing about Swenson and her work. Series III contains examples of Swenson's writings, mainly poems both published and unpublished. This series also contains poetry reviews written by Swenson, as well as music and poetry inspired by Swenson. Series IV consists almost exclusively of audio recordings. The first set of recordings includes reel-to-reel tapes that were numbered 1-58, probably by Swenson (note that 13 is missing). The last reel, Reel 59, was acquired from USU English professor Reed C. Stock, and is not a part of May's original audio collection. The CDs and cassette tapes appear to be copied from these reel-to-reel tapes.

While there is some original material in this collection, much of it consists of photocopies, either of material still held by the Literary Estate or from the May Swenson collection at Washington University in St. Louis. Written on documents throughout the collection are brief notes from Zan Knudson explaining the significance of the item. These notes provide useful context to researchers.

Conservation note: The reel-to-reel tapes were reboxed and foldered with the original boxes. Manuscript material found folded up in the original boxes was placed in a separate folder located just behind the reel from which it came.

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Use of the Collection

Restrictions on Use

It is the responsibility of the researcher to obtain any necessary copyright clearances.

Permission to publish material from the May Swenson addendum must be obtained from the Special Collections Manuscript Curator and/or the Special Collections Department Head.

Materials held in Series I, Box 2 cannot be reproduced.

Preferred Citation

Initial Citation: May Swenson addendum, USU_COLL MSS 485, Box [ ]. Special Collections and Archives. Utah State University Merrill-Cazier Library. Logan, Utah.

Following Citations:USU_COLL MSS 485, USUSCA.

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Administrative Information

Arrangement

This collection is arranged in four series: Personal, Professional, Writings, and Audio Recordings.

Processing Note

Processed in February of 2013

Acquisition Information

Items purchased by the Friends of the Merrill-Cazier Library in 2011 include letters written to May from The New York Quarterly (December 30, 1978), The New Yorker (August 11, 1983), and Borestone Mountain Poetry Awards (November 9, 1970). All three correspondences are housed in Series II, Box 1, Fd 8. The Friends also purchased a certificate from the National Institute of Arts and Letters (1970—Series II, Box 1, Fd 10) and a copy of the poem "October" from The New Yorker (October 31, 1977—Series III, Box 2, Fd 7).

Joyce Kinkead donated a master copy of A Cage of Spines (Series III, Box 1, Fd 2) to USU Special Collections in 2005.

In 2004 Rozanne Knudsen gave the cassette tapes to Michael Spooner who transferred them to Special Collections and Archives. In 2008 Rozanne Knudsen donated the score for "Truth Becoming," a string quartet written by Pamela J. Marshall and inspired by Swenson's poem, "The Process," to USU Special Collections (Series III, Box 2, Fd 11). Nearly all of the remaining material came from a 2004 Knudsen donation, however, the exact provenance of the reel-to-reel tapes is unknown.

A corrected galley proof of May Swenson's, "New and Selected Things Take Place" (1978) was purchased from Carole Berglie in 2013 and added to Series III, Box 3 of the collection.

Paul Crumbley donated a number of items in 2017, which he recieved from Rozanne Knudsen. These include Series I, Box 1, Folders 14-24; Series I, Box 1, Folders 15-17; and Series III, Box 2, Folders 16-18.

Michael Spooner also donated materials in 2017, including the correspondence in Series I, Box 2 and the educational materials in Series III, Box 2, Folder 19.

USU Special Collections purchased the item in Series II, Box 1, Folder 18 from Ken Sanders Rare Books in 2020.

Related Materials

May Swenson papers, Coll Mss 282

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Detailed Description of the Collection

Names and SubjectsReturn to Top

Subject Terms

  • Authors, American--Utah.
  • Poets, American--Utah.

Form or Genre Terms

  • Oral interpretation of poetry.
  • Poetry.

Finding aid/Register created by Clint Pumphrey
2013

CC Attribution
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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