Pulitzer Prize Winning Poet

September 29, 1999 (Wednesday) 8:00 p.m. Recital Hall Performing Arts Center 4:00 p.m. Informal Seminar Humanities 290

Carolyn Kizer has published six collections of poems, a book of translations, and a volume of essays on verse. Her many awards for her poetry include The Pulitzer Prize (1985); The Frost Medal and Masefield Prize of the Poetry Society of America; The American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award (1985); The Award of Honor of the San Francisco Arts Commission; The Borrestone Award (six times); the Pushcart Prize (three times); The Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize (1988); The Governor's Award for best book of the year, State of Washington, 1965, 1985; Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Whitman College (1988) and Chancellor, American Academy of Poetry, 1995.

Her works include Proses: Essays on Verse (1994, Copper Canyon Press) and Picking & Choosing (1995, ISBN 0-910055-25-4, Eastern Washington University Press).

She was born in Spokane, Washington, and attended Lewis & Clark High School in Spokane, Sarah Lawrence College, Columbus University (where she was a Fellow of the Chinese Government in Comparative Literature), and the University of Washington where she was founding editor of Poetry Northwest (1959-65).

In 1964-65 she was Specialist in Literature for the U.S. State Department in Pakistan, and in 1966 she became the first Director of Literary Programs for the newly created National Endowment for the Arts. She resigned the post in 1970, when the Chairman of the N.E.A., Roger L. Stevens, was fired by President Richard Nixon. She was a Consultant to the N.E.A. for the following year.

Throughout the 'seventies and 'eighties, she held appointments as distinguished poet-in-residence, lecturer at major universities throughout the nation, and has been a visiting writer at literary conferences and events throughout the U.S., as well as in Dublin, Ireland, and Paris, France.

She is married to the distinguished architect-historian, John Marshall Woodbridge. When she is not teaching and lecturing, she divides her time between their home in Sonoma, California, and their apartment in Paris.

Copper Canyon Press Writers Online Magazine Article