Diane Wakoski
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Diane Wakoski (born August 3, 1937) is an American poet. Wakoski is primarily associated with the deep image poets, as well as the confessional and Beat poets of the 1960s.<ref name="Httpwwwscenemetrospacecompoetrywithdianewakoskisapphoshtm">Template:Cite web</ref> She received considerable attention in the 1980s for controversial comments linking New Formalism with Reaganism.Template:Cn
Life and work
Wakoski was born in Whittier, California. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley where she graduated in 1960 with a Bachelor of Arts degree. During her time at this university she participated in Thom Gunn's poetry workshops. It was there that she first read many of the modernist poets who would influence her writing style.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her early writings were considered part of the deep image movement that also included the works of Jerome Rothenberg, Robert Kelly, and Clayton Eshleman, among others. She also cites William Carlos Williams, Allen Ginsberg and Charles Bukowski as influences. Her poetry career began in New York City, where she moved with La Monte Young in 1960. She remained a resident of New York City until 1973.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Her later work is more personal and conversational in the Williams mode. Wakoski is married to the photographer Robert Turney, and is University Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.<ref>http://www.lib.msu.edu/services/spec_coll/writer/MWCDianeWakoski.htmlTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Wakoski's literary works have been recognized and highlighted at Michigan State University in their Michigan Writers Series.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Her work has been published in more than twenty collections and many slim volumes of poetry. Her selected poems, Emerald Ice, won the William Carlos Williams Prize from the Poetry Society of America in 1989. She is best known for a series of poems collectively known as The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems.<ref name="Httpwwwscenemetrospacecompoetrywithdianewakoskisapphoshtm" /><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Many of her books have been published in fine editions by Black Sparrow Press. In 2022, Black Sparrow Press published an expanded edition of The Motorcycle Betrayal Poems titled Dancing on the Grave of a Son of a Bitch: The Complete Motorcycle Betrayal Poems. The new hardcover edition includes an introduction by Elizabeth A.I. Powell, additional poems, and an afterword by Wakoski. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
Awards
- William Carlos Williams Award for her book Emerald Ice.
- Guggenheim Foundation grant
- National Endowment for the Arts grant
- Fulbright Grant
- Pansy Award from The Society of Western Flowers
Bibliography
Poetry
Collections
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- Smudging. Black Sparrow Press. 1972.
- Greed: Parts 8, 9, & 11. Black Sparrow Press. 1973.
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- Why My Mother Likes Liberace: A Musical Selection. SUN/gemini Press. 1985.
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List of poems
| Title | Year | First published | Reprinted/collected |
|---|---|---|---|
| "Oysters with lemon in Montmartre" | 2011 | Template:Cite journal | Template:Cite book |
Non-fiction
References
External links
- Diane Wakoski at The Academy of American Poets
- RED BANDANNA: a poem
- David Smith Collection of Diane Wakoski Materials MSS 687. Special Collections & Archives, UC San Diego Library.
- Interview with Diane Wakoski in 1985 at California State University, Northridge (by Norman Tanis)
|archivedate
- 1937 births
- Living people
- Modernist women writers
- Poets from California
- University of California, Berkeley alumni
- Michigan State University faculty
- People from La Habra, California
- Writers from Whittier, California
- American people of Polish descent
- American women poets
- American women essayists
- 20th-century American poets
- 20th-century American women writers
- 21st-century American poets
- 21st-century American women writers
- 20th-century American essayists
- 21st-century American essayists
- American women academics