Jean Garrigue
Jean Garrigue was an American poet and educator, born on December 8, 1914, in Evansville, Indiana. She began her writing journey in her teens, editing a weekly newspaper before pursuing higher education at the University of Chicago, where she earned her B.A. in 1937. Garrigue's literary career flourished post-World War II, during which she published her first solo collection of poetry in 1947 and gained recognition for her contributions to various literary publications. Her teaching career took her to several prominent institutions, including Bard College, Queens College, and the New School for Social Research. Garrigue's work earned her numerous accolades, including a Guggenheim fellowship and various poetry prizes, highlighting her technical skill and innovative use of language. Her notable collection, "Country Without Maps," received a nomination for a National Book Award, showcasing her impact on American poetry. Despite her battle with Hodgkin's disease, which led to her passing on December 27, 1972, Garrigue's legacy endures through her distinctive voice and the admiration of fellow poets.
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Subject Terms
Jean Garrigue
Poet
- Born: December 8, 1914
- Birthplace: Evansville, Indiana
- Died: December 27, 1972
- Place of death: Boston, Massachusetts
Biography
Jean Garrigue was born on December 8, 1914, in Evansville, Indiana, to postal inspector Allan Kolfax and Gertrude Heath Garrigus. Garrigue, who changed the maternal family surname back to its original French spelling, was writing in her teens and editing a weekly newspaper in the late 1930’s. She then attended the University of Chicago, where she earned her B.A. in 1937. Although she was reportedly an anarchist later on, during World War II she wrote for a U.S.O. publication.
In 1943 she graduated with a M.A. from the University of Iowa, in Iowa City. There she was instructor of English literature for a year before earning her M.A. in 1944. Garrigue contributed her first poetry to a publication titled Five Young American Poets and published her first solo work—a collection of poems—in 1947. From 1951 to 1952, she taught literature at Bard College in Annandale, New York, and she taught at Queens College in Flushing, New York, from 1952 to 1953.
In 1953, when she was thirty-six, Garrigue lived in Europe (earning a Rockefeller grant for creative writing in 1954), and she returned to the Continent in 1957 and again in 1962. Back in the United States, she taught at the New School for Social Research in New York (from 1955 to 1956), University of Connecticut in Storrs (from 1960 to 1961), and Smith College (from 1965 to 1966). She settled, finally, in New England.
Garrigue won the Union League Civic and Arts Foundation prize in 1956, the Hudson Review fellowship in poetry in 1957, the Longview award in 1959, a Guggenheim fellowship from 1960 to 1961, a National Institute of Arts and Letters grant in 1962, the Emily Clark Balch first prize in 1966 (for Country Without Maps). Country Without Maps received a nomination for a National Book Award and also for the Melville Cane award in 1968, Jean Garrigue succumbed to Hodgkin’s disease and died on December 27, 1972, in Boston, Massachusetts. Her awards attest to her skill as a poet: in praise of her technical acuity, her freshness, and her richness of rhythm and diction, such fellow poets as Theodore Roethke and Richard Eberhard described her as “ardent in the invention of new phrases. . . a rare perfectionist of attitudes. . . and a poet habituated to verbal elegance.”