An interview with the author, Stephen Carter!
Join the Mildred Berryman Institute and Signature Books for a conversation with author Stephen Carter about his new book, Creature, a biography of queer Utah poet May Swenson—available to order here or to purchase at the event. Mildred Berryman Institute co-founder and board member Megan Weiss will interview Carter about Swenson’s life, work, sexuality, and complicated relationship with her Utah roots.
One of the most celebrated American poets of the twentieth century, May Swenson was born in Logan, Utah, in 1919 and went on to build a distinguished literary career in New York. Her poetry explored desire, identity, the body, nature, and the complexities of human relationships, while her personal life included relationships with women that have become an increasingly important part of how her work is understood.
Drawing on Creature, Carter and Weiss will explore Swenson’s life and legacy, her connection to Utah, and the place of queer experience in her poetry and biography. The conversation will offer an opportunity to consider a remarkable Utah-born writer whose life and work have much to tell us about the history of Queer life, creativity, and identity in the state.
About Creature and May Swenson: Creature, by Stephen Carter, examines the life and work of May Swenson, the acclaimed twentieth-century American poet born in Logan, Utah, in 1919. Swenson became known for her inventive and sensuous poetry and spent much of her adult life in New York, where she developed relationships with women and participated in literary circles that shaped her career. Her work frequently explored desire, the body, gender, and the natural world, making her an important figure in the history of American poetry and a compelling subject for the study of Utah’s Queer history.
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