May Swenson (1913鈥�1989) was one of the most important and original poets of the twentieth century. The Key to Everything is a biography of this experimental American modernist that draws directly from her unpublished diaries and her letters to friends, family, and colleagues, most notably Elizabeth Bishop. In 1952, Swenson wrote in her diary, 鈥淚 want to confirm my life in a narrative鈥攎y Lesbianism, the hereditary background of my parents, grandparents, origins in the 鈥榦ld country.鈥欌�� Taking up Swenson鈥檚 uncompleted autobiographical plan, Margaret Brucia tells Swenson鈥檚 story as much as possible through her own words.
While chronicling the whole of Swenson鈥檚 life, this book focuses on the period from 1936 to 1959, when she came of age artistically and personally in New York City. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Federal Writers鈥� Project, Greenwich Village, and the emergence of gay culture, Swenson鈥檚 diaries lay bare her aspirations, fears, joys, and disappointments. Readers see the poet and person emerge, inextricably entwined, as Swenson describes her struggles with poverty, anonymity, and predatory men; her romantic relationships; and the people she met, the books she read, and the work she produced.
The most detailed and intimate biography of Swenson to date, The Key to Everything is a unique portrait of a poet who resisted labels throughout her life.
Margaret A. Brucia is a Fulbright scholar, the recipient of a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fellow of the American Academy in Rome. Trained as a classicist, she has a special interest in women’s diaries and letters. Paul Crumbley is professor emeritus of English at Utah State University and coeditor of Body My House: May Swenson’s Work and Life. David Hoak is an independent scholar whose work focuses on letters between poets, including May Swenson and Elizabeth Bishop.
"Quoting extensively from Swenson’s writings, Brucia allows the poet’s voice to clearly emerge. . . . A perceptive, sympathetic biography."鈥�Kirkus Reviews
“This book explores the life and loves of a major American poet who amazes us for her originality and skill, her sensuousness and precision, her celebrations of worldly things. Through letters, diaries, and interviews, Brucia chronicles the poet’s coming of age in New York, tracing her personal growth and the progress of her art.”—Grace Schulman, author of Again, the Dawn: New and Selected Poems
“Both the poet May Swenson and the time and place where she found her voice—the edgy, heady Greenwich Village of the 1930s—come thrillingly alive in Margaret Brucia’s impeccably researched biography.”—Alice Sparberg Alexiou, author of Devil’s Mile: The Rich, Gritty History of the Bowery
“Full of revelations from beginning to end, this fine biography offers a wonderful portrait of May Swenson, a unique poet who had a major impact on my life and work.”—Edward Field, author of The Man Who Would Marry Susan Sontag: And Other Intimate Literary Portraits of the Bohemian Era
“Margaret Brucia has scrupulously combed the personal records of May Swenson to write this long-overdue biography. What emerges is an intimate portrait of a woman and poet breathing deeply of the rich world around her.”—Peter-Christian Aigner, director of The Gotham Center for New York City History
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