May Swenson

In celebration of the centenary of May Swenson's birth, The Library of America presents a one-volume edition of all of the poems that Swenson published in her lifetime--from her first collection Another Animal (1954) to the innovative shaped poems of Iconographs (1970) to her final work In Other Words (1987)--as well as a selection of previously uncollected work. The collection reveals the sweeping compass of Swenson's curiosity: nature poems display her keen observation of wildlife; exuberant and erotic love poems celebrate beauty and passion; place poems record her travels to the American Southwest, France, and Italy and her residence in New York City and Sea Cliff, Long Island; verse "analyses" investigate baseball, wave motion, the DNA molecule, bronco busting, James Bond movies, and the first walk on the moon. Swenson was an inveterate reviser: poems in earlier volumes were frequently reworked for inclusion in later volumes, such as To Mix with Time...