Swansea, Charleen

Charleen Swansea, eldest child of Henry and Elvilee Swanzey, was born in Charlotte, N.C., on 27 May 1933. She worked through high school selling false teeth manufactured by her father. She was graduated from Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C., in 1954 with a B.A. in Latin and English. In the winter of 1954, Swansea began corresponding with poet Ezra Pound, then at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. Pound had been declared unfit to stand trial for treason resulting from his support of Italian Fascism. Pound and Swansea corresponded frequently in 1955 and continued writing until around 1960.

Swansea graduated from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in 1956 with an M.A. in Modern Poetry. In summer 1956, she married the architect Murray Whisnant. Swansea became an instructor of English at UNC for one year before moving back to Charlotte, where she taught at Queens College until 1964.

After being fired from Queens College in a dispute over her nonconformist attitude (and possibly her position on race issues), Swansea founded Red Clay Reader, an annual magazine that published the work of southern authors and artists. She edited the magazine until 1970, when the publication was overwhelmed by the number of submissions it received. She then founded Red Clay Publishers to publish books by women writers.

Swansea was poetry editor for Southern Voices from 1973 to 1975. She published Poetry Power in 1973 and Word Magic in 1974. She served as poet in residence and director of poetry for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Public Schools in 1977.