Barbara Guest
Barbara Guest was an influential American poet, born on September 6, 1920, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and raised in Los Angeles. After earning her B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, she moved to New York City in 1943, where she became part of the vibrant New York School of Poets alongside notable figures like Frank O'Hara, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler. Guest's poetry is known for its experimental style and exploration of themes such as space and travel, with notable collections including "The Location of Things" (1960) and "The Blue Stairs" (1968). In addition to her poetry, she also contributed to the literary community as an art critic and editor for Partisan Review. Over her career, Guest received several prestigious awards, including the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 1998. Although her work was initially overshadowed by more politically engaged and confessional poets, it is currently experiencing renewed interest for its unique voice and contribution to modern poetry. Guest's legacy continues to influence contemporary poets, particularly in the realm of experimental literature.
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Barbara Guest
Poet
- Born: September 6, 1920
- Birthplace: Wilmington, North Carolina
- Died: February 15, 2006
- Place of death: Berkeley, California
Biography
Barbara Guest was born on September 6, 1920, in Wilmington, North Carolina, and raised in Los Angeles, the daughter of James Harvey and Ann Hetzel Pinson. After receiving a B.A. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1943, she moved to New York City. She married Lord Stephen Haden-Guest in 1949; they had a daughter, Hadley, and divorced in 1954. That same year she married Trumbull Higgins, a professor of military history, with whom she had a son, Jonathan. From 1951 to 1954, she worked as an art critic for Art News.
In 1952, Guest sent a poem to Partisan Review that caught the attention of the poet Frank O’Hara. She would later belong to a group of poets that included O’Hara, John Ashbery, and James Schuyler, known as the New York School of Poets. Members of this group were influenced by the surrealist and abstract expressionist movements of modern art. She also served as poetry editor of Partisan Review. Her poems were included in the 1960 anthology, The New American Poetry, and the 1969 anthology, The Poets of the New York School.
Her first collection of poetry, The Location of Things, published in 1960, explored the metaphor of space. A frequent traveler herself, Guest’s third collection of poems, The Blue Stairs (1968), explored the metaphor of travel. Her biography of the imagist poet H. D. was published in 1984. Biography (1981), a collection of poems written as a response to her work on this biography, was published three years earlier. Her 1988 collection, Fair Realism, explored the familiar ground of painting but was written in a more experimental style that would dominate Guest’s later work. She also published her work in How(ever), a journal of experimental women’s poetry edited by Kathleen Fraser. In addition, Guest published an experimental novel, Seeking Air (1978), and wrote three plays, which were produced in New York City during the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In 1958, Guest was a fellow at Yaddo, an artists’ community. She also received a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 1980. She received the Longview Award for her first book, The Location of Things, in 1960; the 1990 Lawrence Lipton prize in literature; and the 1994 San Francisco State University award for poetry. In 1998, she received the Frost medal from the Poetry Society of America.
Overshadowed by political poets such as Adrienne Rich and Denise Levertov, and confessional poets such as Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath, the work of Guest, which is difficult to place in a feminist context, is receiving renewed attention. Her work has appeared in recent anthologies, including From the Other Side of the Century and Postmodern American Poetry, published in 1994, and the fourth edition of the Norton Anthology of Poetry, published in 1996. Guest is recognized for her experimental style and her influence on the Language Poets.