Ai (poet)

Ai (* October 21, 1947 in Albany, Texas, † March 20, 2010 in Stillwater, Oklahoma) was an American poet who had specialized in the dramatic monologue, they both anonymous people and well-known personalities in the mouth put. Your first monologue collection was published in 1973; it was followed by seven more by 2010. Among other awards received Ai in 1999 the National Book Award. At the time of her death she taught creative writing at Oklahoma State University.

Life and work

Ai was born in 1947 as Florence Anthony in Albany and grew up among others in Tucson. Her father was a Japanese with surname Ogawa, with their married mother had a brief affair. Anthony was the surname of her mother's husband; during her childhood lived Ai but under the name Florence Haynes, the name of her second stepfather. In graduate school, she began again to call Florence Anthony. When she learned in 1973 by her biological father, she took over his surname and additionally you used since 1969 writer - pen name "Ai" as a middle name.

In 1969, Ai graduated from the University of Arizona with a BA. She then graduated from the University of California at Irvine in 1971, her Master of Fine Arts. A first volume of short monologues published in 1973 under the title of Cruelty. In 1975, Ai was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and the Bunting Fellowship of Radcliffe College, and in 1978 a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. From 1977 to '78 Ai taught as a visiting poet at Wayne State University. In 1979, her second book of poems Killing Floor was released, had won the manuscript of the year before the Lamont Poetry Selection of the Academy of American Poets Award. This led Ai -known personalities as a narrative people in her oeuvre.

Ais third book Sin appeared in 1986. At this time saw a reviewer for the New York Times such influence that he described it as partly responsible for the former popularity of the dramatic monologue among young poets. For Sin Ai received in the following year the American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation. During this time, she was a visiting poet at George Mason University, followed by a position as Writer -in- Residence at Arizona State University from 1988-89.

Your next two works were Fate (1991) and Greed ( 1993). Under the title of Vice: New and Selected Poems appeared in 1999 then eighteen new and 58 previously published monologues Ais. This work was awarded the National Book Award in the category Poetry. As of 1999, Ai was working as a Professor of Creative Writing at Oklahoma State, a body which she held until her death. In 2002 and 2003 she also took over the Chair of Creative Writing at Southwest Texas State University.

With Dread came out in 2003, the last book that was published during her lifetime. In 2009 she received the United States Artists Ford Fellowship. In March 2010 Ai died from pneumonia, which had formed the basis of a previously undetected cancer. Posthumously published in September No Surrender.

Works

  • Cruelty (1973 )
  • Killing Floor (1979 )
  • Sin (1986 )
  • Fate (1991 )
  • Greed ( 1993)
  • Vice: New and Selected Poems (1999)
  • Dread (2003)
  • No Surrender (2010)
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