Bogan, Louise, 1897-1970

Louise Bogan was an American poet, critic, and teacher; she was poetry editor of The New Yorker for many years.

Louise Bogan was born on August 11, 1897 in Livermore Falls, Maine. She was raised in Milton, New Hampshire and Ballardvale, Massachusetts and lived most of her adult life in New York City. She was educated at Boston Girls' Latin School beginning in 1912 and attended Boston University for one year (1915-1916). Her interest in poetry began early, and she had work published in the New Republic, the Nation, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Scribner's, and Atlantic Monthly. She was widowed after four years of marriage to Curt Alexander - with whom she had one daughter - in 1920, and her second marriage to poet Raymond Holden in 1925 ended with divorce in 1937. In 1923 she published her first book, Body of this death. Her brief lyrics, highly limited in theme, were formal and in sharp contrast to the modernism of such poets as T.S. Eliot, who began to see a rise in popularity at the start of the 1920s. Her next volumes, Dark summer (1929) and The sleeping fury (1937), were born out of the personal tribulations she experienced in her second marriage. She soon met other writers in the city's thriving literary community, William Carlos Williams, Malcolm Cowley, Lola Ridge, John Reed, Marianne Moore, and, most important, Edmund Wilson, who became her early mentor. Wilson, already a man of reputation, urged her to write reviews of literature for periodicals, and this eventually became a steady source of income. In 1931, Bogan became poetry editor and critic for The New Yorker; she held the position until 1970. Bogan also established a friendship with renowned poet and writer May Sarton. She taught occasionally in the 1940s, and in 1951 she was commissioned to write a short history of American poetry, eventually published as Achievement in American Poetry, 1900-1950. Her second collection, Collected Poems, 1923-1953, won a shared Bollingen Prize in 1955. She received a monetary award in 1959 from the Academy of American Poets and another from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1967. Her final collection, The blue estuaries 1923-1968, included only 103 poems and was published in 1968. Her place among the modernist poets was an important one, as she attempted to rejuvenate the tradition of formal poetry, injecting the medium with intellect and emotion to create something truly unique. She died in 1970.

Bogan was born in Livermore Falls, Maine, in 1897. She attended Boston Girls' Latin School and, for one year, Boston University. She married Kurt Alexander in 1916 and was widowed in 1920. In 1925, she married the poet Raymond Holden, whom she divorced in 1937. For thirty-eight years, she reviewed poetry for The New Yorker. She died in New York City in 1970.

American poet, critic, translator, and editor.

Louise Bogan was born in Livermore Falls, Maine, in 1897. She attended Boston Girls' Latin School and, for one year, Boston University. She married Kurt Alexander in 1916 and was widowed in 1920. In 1925, she married her second husband, the poet Raymond Holden, whom she divorced in 1937. Her poems were published in the New Republic, the Nation, Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, Scribner's and Atlantic Monthly . For thirty-eight years, she reviewed poetry for The New Yorker .

Because Bogan was reclusive and disliked talking about herself, details regarding her private life are scarce. She wrote most of her poetry in the earlier half of her life when she published Body of This Death (1923), Dark Summer (1929) and The Sleeping Fury (1937). She published volumes of her collected verse in 1941 and 1954, and finally The Blue Estuaries: Poems 1923-1968, an overview of her life's work in poetry. She died in New York City in 1970.