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Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... R.H. Stafford Library (Woodbury) | 921 NORRIS | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
After a sheltered upbringing in Hawaii, Kathleen Norris was woefully unprepared for Bennington College in the 1960s, with its counterculture of drugs, sex, and bohemianism. But it was also at Bennington that she discovered her great love of poetry, which carried her to New York City at a time when a new generation of poets was rattling the establishment and filling the streets and schools and libraries with a sense of urgency. This is Norris's memoir of that time, when she worked at the Academy of American Poets in the day and hung out with Andy Warhol's crowd at night. It is an inspiring tribute to poetry and a stunning evocation of a time and place that is all but forgotten: New York City in the late sixties.
Author Notes
Kathleen Norris is the award-winning author of "Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith"; "The Cloister Walk"; & the forthcoming "The Virgin of Bennington". She lives in South Dakota & Hawaii.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Thirty-five years ago, poet Norris (The Cloister Walk), the studious daughter of a schoolteacher and professional musician, left her sheltered upbringing in Honolulu Navy housing, ill-prepared for life at wildly liberal Bennington College. Though she fell into an incongruous lesbian relationship, and later, an affair with a married professor, her naivete earned her the nickname "the Virgin of Bennington." Landing a job at New York's Academy of American Poets after college, under the tutelage of arts administrator Betty Kray, alternately described as an "anchor," "mentor" and "friend" who "set a high standard by which I still measure myself," Norris attended poetry readings nearly every day for five years. Norris's first taste of literary success came in her early 20s with the publication of Falling Off. The polished, classy voice of professional reader and Brilliance Audio director Sandra Burr brings an immediacy and freshness to the snippets of poetry (by well- or lesser-known poets, including Norris herself) interspersed throughout the narrative. Less suited to the audio format are the long lists of poets attending functions, and lengthy excerpts from Kray's personal papers. Personal recollections of drug use, encounters with Halston, Keith Richards, Stanley Kunitz, Bob Dylan, Erica Jong, Patti Smith, James Wright not to mention her relationships with Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga and author Jim Carroll belie Norris's quiet, cerebral style and self-proclaimed gullibility, which she chalks up to the "wantonly innocent" zeitgeist. While autobiographical, Norris's memoir is also a tribute to poets and to Kray, whose 30 years of groundbreaking work on behalf of poets included a pilot program to bring poetry to public schoolchildren. Based on Riverhead hardcover (Forecasts Apr. 2). (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
Norris' subjects--the muted yet majestic Dakota landscape, her family history, the Benedictine monastic tradition, and the power of poetry--hardly seem the stuff of commercial success, yet each of her books has been a best-seller. She now continues her autobiographical journey by going back to the period that preceded the move to her grandparents' house, which was chronicled so memorably in Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (1992). She was a shy and well-behaved midwesterner in the mid-1960s, wholly unprepared for the sophistication and pretension of Vermont's famously bohemian Bennington College. A fledgling poet, she evinced a fastidiousness that earned her the nickname the "Virgin of Bennington," but it was a passionate affair with a married professor that induced her to move to New York City. There she had the extraordinary good fortune of finding a job at the newly established Academy of American Poets, then under the inspired direction of Elizabeth Kray. Of gracious and modest temperament, Kray was a visionary and tireless advocate who strived to make contemporary poetry accessible to everyone. She was also instrumental in helping Norris and many others become not only writers but also fully realized human beings. Norris now expresses her profound gratitude and admiration in a magnetic, poignant, often funny, and genuinely inspiring portrait of her mentor. She offers a frank chronicle of her young self, too, and snapshots of the creative synergy that brought her into contact with such disparate artists as W. H. Auden, Patti Smith, and James Merrill. Kray's abiding faith in people and the transcendence of language shine brightly as Norris entrances and enlightens her readers with supple insights into the elusive nature of goodness. Donna Seaman
Kirkus Review
Poet and nonfiction author Norris ( The Cloister Walk , 1996, etc.) focuses in this autobiography on her years at Bennington College in the mid-1960s and a subsequent period of maturation in New York City. Notorious for its atmosphere of sexual promiscuity, drugs, and bohemian liberalism, Bennington seemed a bad fit for a shy girl from Honolulu whose most cherished entertainments consisted of reading and singing in the church choir. Dubbed by her college mates the Virgin of Bennington, Norris spent four years in self-imposed isolation, composing verse largely out of a need for protective coloration in a world that seemed to have little place for her. Poetry was a defense mechanism against the intrusion of coarse reality, claims Norris, who had her first sexual experience with another girl and later became the lover of a married professor. Moving to New York after graduation, she took a job at the Academy of American Poets, performing menial secretarial tasks but benefiting from the opportunity to attend poetry readings and meet stars of the literary demimonde. Persistently describing herself as too bashful to venture out to a Manhattan grocery store, in the same breath the author portrays all-night binges in the bars and poets lofts she frequented, sometimes to the detriment of her daytime responsibilities. More interesting than her panorama of New Yorks unbridled bohemian lifestyle is Norriss tribute to mentor and friend Betty Kray, executive director of the AAP. Committed to helping struggling writers through grants and awards, Kray nourished many native talents while also promoting foreign celebrities. Convinced of Krays decisive role in her own creative development, Norris mulls over their friendship and Bettys selfless devotion to the verbal art. There just isnt anything unusual enough about the authors experiences and perceptions to make this more than a near-stereotypical tale of a provincial American emerging from a sheltered, small-town environment to confront the dangers and temptations of a big metropolis. Author tour
Library Journal Review
Bennington in the Sixties shook up leading spiritual writer Norris (The Cloister Walk) but introduced her to her great love: poetry. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| 1. The Virgin of Bennington | p. 1 |
| 2. Worlds | p. 21 |
| 3. How to be a Poet | p. 43 |
| 4. Falling Off | p. 65 |
| 5. Salvation by Poetry | p. 93 |
| 6. Gravity | p. 123 |
| 7. Taking Wing | p. 143 |
| 8. "Only Connect" | p. 159 |
| 9. Solicitude | p. 179 |
| 10. Tonasket | p. 205 |
| Coda. "We Should form a Company" | p. 237 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 253 |
