Carolyn Ashley Kizer (1924–2014) was an American poet, essayist, and translator. Noted for involvement with feminism and human rights activism, she wrote her biting satirical works, such as her best-known poem, “Pro Femina.”
Born in Spokane, Washington, Kizer published a poem in The New Yorker when she was 17. She graduated from Sarah Lawrence College and did graduate work at Columbia and Washington. In 1959, she co-founded Poetry Northwest, which she also edited 1959–65.
After serving in Pakistan as a literary specialist for the U.S. State Department 1964–65, Kizer became the first director of literary programs for the National Endowment for the Arts (1966–70.) Kizer taught at many universities, including the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Stanford, Princeton, and Columbia universities.
Kizer’s published collections included Poems (1959,) The Ungrateful Garden (1961,) Knock upon Silence (1965,) Midnight Was My Cry (1971,) Mermaids in the Basement: Poems for Women (1984,) The Nearness of You (1986,) and Harping On: Poems 1985–95 (1996.) Her collection Yin: New Poems (1984) won the Pulitzer for poetry in 1985.
Kizer also wrote Proses: On Poems and Poets (1993,) Picking and Choosing (1995,) and other prose pieces. She edited the collection 100 Great Poems by Women (1995.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Carolyn Kizer
Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
—Carolyn Kizer
Topics: Face, Faces
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Mark Van Doren American Poet, Critic
Alice Walker American Novelist, Activist
Joyce Carol Oates American Novelist
Mark Strand American Poet, Essayist
Grace Paley American Author
Maya Angelou American Poet
Clarissa Pinkola Estes American Poet
Charlotte Perkins Gilman American Feminist, Writer
Audre Lorde American Poet, Feminist
Lucille Clifton American Poet