
Babette Deutsch Introduces May Swenson
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As you know this series of poetry readings is called poets of tomorrow so it seems appropriate that you should hear from a young poet may Swenson was work appear in a book recently published by script knows under the title poets of today that volume introduces the work of three poets each one has given a title to he is are her a group of poems may Swenson has been talked about her group another animal perhaps some of my sympathy with her where I can be gauged by the fact that my own most recent book of poems is called Animals that she told mineral apparently may Swenson and but that you have kindred interests and attitudes I think of man as unique in being an imaginative animal that above all is what makes him an artist if he uses language imaginatively he is a poet may Swenson is one this when Singh was born and educated in Utah but for some years she has been living and working here in New York she says that she leads the life of an office worker from nine to five and the life of a poet from five to nine but to judge by the shops most of her imagery this when sometimes poetic imagination is awake most of the time the programmes have appeared in a number of periodicals and several am solitaries in one nine hundred fifty three she won the poet Korean productions prize at the Y.M. ha Poetry Center a program to forward several kinds of interest for one thing they communicate her own lively pleasure in what our five senses have to offer and she has a gift for metaphor. She is able to see things in an unusual way and so to make you see them with a fresh eye her imagination is playful and her poems invite you to enter into the game with her at the same time it is thoughtful poetry the meanings are not always there on the surface though you're going to enjoy the poem without troubling about its deeper significance Nevertheless some of the most interesting where the prize more attention than a single hearing permits for that reason I have I'll start to do an unusual thing in poetry broadcasts indeed in any broadcast and that is not merely to comment on one of her poems but to read it for you twice I take pleasure in presenting may Swenson.