Bergé, Carol, 1928-

Carol Bergé, born in 1928 in New York City, is primarily a poet and fiction writer. She was educated at New York University, 1946-1952, and at the New School for Social Research, 1952-1954. Bergé worked as a journalist and editorial assistant during the 1950s for such organizations as Simon and Schuster and Forbes magazine. In 1970 she founded Center, a magazine for innovative fiction, and was its sole editor until its demise in 1981. Other journals she has edited include The Mississippi Review, 1977-1978, and since 1980, Shearsman.

She has lectured extensively since the 1970s at such universities as the University of California at Berkeley, Indiana University at Bloomington, and the State University of New York at Albany. She has been a board member of numerous organizations such as P.E.N., Poets and Writers, and the Modern Language Association. Bergé has also been awarded numerous literary honors. These include the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation fellowship (1964), several fellowships-in-residence at the McDowell Colony, and a National Endowment fellowship for creative writing (1979).

Bergé was a prominent figure in New York's East Village poetry scene of the late 1950s and 1960s. Her work could be characterized as including Beat and early feminist elements, but reflects such diverse influences as Chaucer, Shakespeare, D. H. Lawrence, Dylan Thomas, William Carlos Williams, and Pablo Neruda. Bergé was involved with poets of the San Francisco poetry renaissance as well as poets of the Deux Magots, Le Metro' cafe, and participated in the multi-media happenings which characterized New York's East Village poetry scene. She was involved in the origins of the poetry series at St. Mark's in the Bouwerie Church in Greenwich Village, which continues to introduce and support contemporary poets. In this capacity, and as very much a part of an urban avant-garde, she helped organize a number of important benefits and conferences.

A selection of her early poems was included in Imamu Amiri Baraka's (LeRoi Jones) 1962 anthology, Four Young Lady Poets. Her later poems were frequently anthologized and appeared in numerous important little magazines of the 1960s-1980s, as well as in journals such as Poetry and The Nation. In 1964 the first of a dozen chapbooks, The Vulnerable Island, was published. Her early prose pieces, The Vancouver Report and An Informal Chronograph of Some New York Poets were published by small presses in 1964 and 1965. The two chapbooks, Poems Made of Skin and Circles, As in the Eye were published in 1968 and 1969. Following the publication of short stories and prose in 1971, Bergé published From a Soft Angle: Poems About Women, which reflected a trend towards women's issues as a focus in writing. Since the 1970s, Bergé has tended to move toward poetic prose and fiction. In 1981 she published a collection that includes short fiction pieces entitled One Page Novels. In 1984 she published her first novel, Secrets, Gossip and Slander.

For further information on the life and writings of Carol Bergé, see: Hayden Carruth, in Hudson Review (New York), 1969; Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Volume 7; Contemporary Poets (1985); Feminist Companion to Literature (1990); Allen de Loach (ed.), The East Side Scene (1972); Howard McCord, in Measure (Pullman, Washington), 1970; Ishmael Reed, in Washington, D C. Post, 1973.

Carol Bergé (Box 1).

Carol Bergé was born in New York in 1955. She is the author of numerous pieces of prose, including A Couple Called Moebius (1972), Acts of Love: An American Novel (1973), Timepieces (1977), The Doppler Effect (1979), and Fierce Metronome (1981). Her volumes of poetry include Secrets, Gossip and Slander (1984), From a Soft Angle: Poems About Women (1972), The Unexpected (1976), Rituals and Gargoyles (1976), A Song, A Chant (1978) and others. Carol Bergé served as editor of CENTER Press, the Mississippi Review, the Shearsman Magazine, Erotica, and the Woodstock Review . She has taught (as faculty and as a visiting professor) at numerous universities and colleges, including Thomas Jefferson College (Michigan), University of California extension (Berkeley), the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of New Mexico, Goddard College, Wright State University, and SUNY Albany. She completed her own studies at New York University and the New School for Social Research.