  Born in Kirkwood, Missouri  Spent half her life in Brooklyn › One of the most famous supporters of the city’s baseball team › Known for writing a poem in 1955 celebrating the only World Series the Brooklyn Dodgers ever won  Worked as a teacher, librarian, and editor of The Dial, a magazine for young writers  Her mother was her best friend and toughest critic; she took care of her mother for many years  In 1921, she was living in NY and published her first collection of poetry, titled Poems. › Not published until she was in her 30’s › Won the Pulitzer Prize for her Collected Poems (1951)  Loved zoos › Many of her poems include references to exotic animals

 Identified by the 19 th century touches in costume she wore, including antique capes › However, behind the costume existed a serious poet of meticulous detail, clarity, and humor.  Modern qualities in poetry › Combined her own writing with quotations and excerpts from social-science and natural history journals › Known for being indebted to other writers for material; at the same time, she was original.  Her poetry reflects some influence from the imagists and some of Williams’s traditions. › Williams called her one of the greatest American poets at the time  Joined apparently unrelated elements of what she observed, and brought them into a picture with a single focus › Worked like a painter – nervous strokes and jagged edges capture a hundred details in one moment stopped in time.