BOGAN, LOUISE

born August 11, 1897, Livermore Falls, Maine, U.S. died February 4, 1970, New York, New York American poet and literary critic who served as poetry critic for The New Yorker from 1931 until 1969. Bogan attended Boston University but left school after a year, in 1916, to marry. Four years later she was left a widow with a child. Bogan's poems were first published in the New Republic, and in 1923 her first volume appeared under the title Body of This Death. She continued to contribute both verse and criticism to the New Republic, The Nation, The New Yorker, Poetry, Atlantic Monthly, and other periodicals while publishing Dark Summer (1929), The Sleeping Fury (1937), and Poems and New Poems (1941). Her verse was frequently compared to that of the English Metaphysical poets in its restrained, intellectual style, its compressed diction and imagery, and its traditional techniques. Yet it is modern, both deeply personal and immediate. Bogan was accounted one of the major American poets of her time. Bogan received many prestigious awards. In 1944 she was a fellow in American letters at the Library of Congress, and in 194546 she held the chair of poetry (now poet laureate consultant in poetry) there. As a critic Bogan was known for her fairness and generosity, and she focused on the strengths of authors in such works as Achievement in American Poetry, 19001950 (1951) and Selected Criticism: Prose, Poetry (1955). In 1968 she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Bogan was a frequent lecturer or visiting professor at American colleges and universities. Her later works include The Blue Estuaries: Poems 19231968 (1968), A Poet's Alphabet (1970), and translations of The Journal of Jules Renard (1964) and of Goethe's Elective Affinities (1964) and The Sorrows of Young Werther (1971).