Aldan, Daisy, 1918-2001

Daisy Aldan was born in 1923 in New York City to Louis Aldan, a designer, and Esther Edelheit Aldan, an actress. She received a B.A. degree from Hunter College in 1943, and an M.A. from Brooklyn College in 1948, and did further graduate study at New York University. While primarily known as a poet, editor, and translator, she has given readings and lectured extensively throughout the United States, Switzerland, India, France, and Germany. She has also taught English, creative writing, literature, speech, and film studies at the New York School of Art and Design, Emerson College (Sussex, England), the Rudolf Steiner Institute (NY), and at the Goetheanum (Switzerland). Aldan, while part of the New York City poetry scene of the 1950s and 1960s, is not well known outside urban literary circles. She was aware of and friends with the Beats, but her style was more influenced by modern French poetry and metaphysics. Aldan has said that her primary motivation is to bring a renewal of the WORD into the world. Aldan was recognized by Epoch, Cornell University's literary magazine, as one of America's fifty best poets.

Aldan's earliest chapbook of poems was published in 1946. This was followed by The Destruction of Cathedrals and Other Poems in 1963, with a preface by Anaïs Nin, and Seven: Seven (Poems and Photographs) in 1965. During the 1970s, Aldan published seven books of experimental and lyrical poetry. Her non-fiction and prose works are focused on the topic of poetry and consciousness. In 1979 she was able to publish, due to an NEA grant, the novella, A Golden Story.

She edited several important poetry magazines, including Folder Magazine of Literature and Art (1953-1959) and Two Cities (co-edited with Anaïs Nin), from 1961 to 1962. She also published in 1959 a book length anthology of poetry and drawings, A New Folder: Americans - Poems and Drawings, that she considered a continuation of Folder Magazine. She has also edited and published translations of works by Stephane Mallarmé, Anaïs Nin, Albert Steffen, and Rudolf Steiner. She contributed to anthologies including Fifty-Three American Poets of Today (1973), Twentieth-Century American Women Poets (1974), and The Little Magazine in America Today (1978), as well as to magazines including Botteghe Oscure, Imago, Massachusetts Review, New York Times, Poet and Critic, and Poetry.

Aldan was awarded the NEA poetry prize in 1968, a Doctor of Letters by the University of Karachi in 1970, and received a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1978 for her book of poems, Between High Tides (1978). She has served in an advisory or directorial capacity for such publications and organizations as Folder Editions, World Literature Today, New York Quarterly, and the Poetry Society of America. She is a member of PEN, World Congress of Poets, National Critics Circle, and the Academy of American Poets.

From the guide to the Daisy Aldan Papers TXRC94-A18., 1946-1966, (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin)

Native New Yorker Daisy Aldan has been an actress, teacher, publisher and lecturer; she has studied painting and eurythmy, and written on a variety of topics. She is perhaps most widely known as a poet, for her delicate verse shows a careful responsibility and intelligence that has been widely praised by critics.

From the description of Daisy Aldan letter to Diane di Prima, 1965 Feb. 20. (Pennsylvania State University Libraries). WorldCat record id: 53003653

American poet, translator, and editor.

From the description of Papers, 1946-1966. (Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center (HRC); University of Texas at Austin). WorldCat record id: 145406077