Nancy Byrd Turner

Last updated

For the Canadian ethnobiologist, see Nancy Turner.

Nancy Byrd Turner (July 29, 1880 September 5, 1971) was an American poet, editor and lecturer. She was a recipient of the Golden Rose Award and the Virginia Writers' Club's poetry prize.

Contents

Life

Nancy Byrd Turner was born in Boydton, Virginia, July 29, 1880. She was the eldest child of Rev. Byrd Thornton and Nancy Turner.

In 1898, she graduated from Hannah More Academy in Maryland and began work as a teacher. During this period her work appeared in several national magazines including the Saturday Evening Post and Scribner's.

In 1917, she moved to Boston to join the editorial staff of The Youth's Companion . By 1922 she was an editor for The Atlantic , The Independent , and Houghton Mifflin. She joined the MacDowell art colony in 1925 and remained there until 1944.

Her first book of poetry, A Riband on My Rein, was published in 1929. Over the course of her career she published 15 books, ranging from adult poetry to children's literature and lyrics. Her work appeared in England and in the United States in such magazines as Good Housekeeping, Harper's Magazine, [1] Ladies' Home Journal, and the New Yorker.

She retired to Ashland, Virginia, to become a lecturer and freelance writer. [2] She died September 5, 1971.

Awards

Works

Poetry

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edna St. Vincent Millay</span> American poet (1892–1950)

Edna St. Vincent Millay was an American lyrical poet and playwright. Millay was a renowned social figure and noted feminist in New York City during the Roaring Twenties and beyond. She wrote much of her prose and hackwork verse under the pseudonym Nancy Boyd.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sarojini Naidu</span> Indian political activist and poet (1879–1949)

Sarojini Naidu was an Indian political activist and poet. She was the former Governor of Uttar Pradesh. A proponent of civil rights, women's emancipation, and anti-imperialism, she played an important role in the Indian independence movement against the British Raj. She was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress and to be appointed governor of a state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Riding</span> American writer

Laura Riding Jackson, best known as Laura Riding, was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">May Swenson</span> American poet

Anna Thilda May "May" Swenson was an American poet and playwright. Harold Bloom considered her one of the most important and original poets of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arna Bontemps</span> American poet, novelist (1902–1973)

Arna Wendell Bontemps was an American poet, novelist and librarian, and a noted member of the Harlem Renaissance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis MacNeice</span> Irish poet and playwright (1907–1963)

Frederick Louis MacNeice was an Irish poet and playwright, and a member of the Auden Group, which also included W. H. Auden, Stephen Spender and Cecil Day-Lewis. MacNeice's body of work was widely appreciated by the public during his lifetime, due in part to his relaxed but socially and emotionally aware style. Never as overtly or simplistically political as some of his contemporaries, he expressed a humane opposition to totalitarianism as well as an acute awareness of his roots.

Virginia Hamilton Adair was an American poet who became famous later in life with the 1996 publication of Ants on the Melon.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Léonie Adams</span> American poet

Léonie Fuller Adams was an American poet. She was appointed the seventh Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1948.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Goodale Sisters</span> American poets

Elaine Goodale Eastman (1863–1953) and Dora Read Goodale (1866–1953) were American poets and sisters from Massachusetts. They published their first poetry as children still living at home, and were included in Edmund Clarence Stedman's classic An American Anthology (1900).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Imogen Guiney</span> American poet

Louise Imogen Guiney was an American poet, essayist and editor, born in Roxbury, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elaine Feinstein</span> English poet and writer (1930–2019)

Elaine Feinstein FRSL was an English poet, novelist, short-story writer, playwright, biographer and translator. She joined the Council of the Royal Society of Literature in 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tracy K. Smith</span> American poet

Tracy K. Smith is an American poet and educator. She served as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States from 2017 to 2019. She has published five collections of poetry, winning the Pulitzer Prize for her 2011 volume Life on Mars. Her memoir, Ordinary Light, was published in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikki Giovanni</span> American poet, writer and activist

Yolande Cornelia "Nikki" Giovanni Jr. is an American poet, writer, commentator, activist, and educator. One of the world's most well-known African-American poets, her work includes poetry anthologies, poetry recordings, and nonfiction essays, and covers topics ranging from race and social issues to children's literature. She has won numerous awards, including the Langston Hughes Medal and the NAACP Image Award. She has been nominated for a Grammy Award for her poetry album, The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. Additionally, she has been named as one of Oprah Winfrey's 25 "Living Legends".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Burden</span> American poet

Jean P. Burden was an American poet, essayist, and author. She was the poetry editor for Yankee magazine for nearly fifty years. She also wrote multiple animal-care books under the pen name Felicia Ames.

Anne Pierson Wiese, is an American poet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert W. Service</span> British-Canadian poet and writer (1874–1958)

Robert William Service was a British-Canadian poet and writer, often called "the Bard of the Yukon". Born in Lancashire of Scottish descent, he was a bank clerk by trade, but spent long periods travelling in the west in the United States and Canada, often in poverty. When his bank sent him to the Yukon, he was inspired by tales of the Klondike Gold Rush, and wrote two poems, "The Shooting of Dan McGrew" and "The Cremation of Sam McGee", which showed remarkable authenticity from an author with no experience of the gold rush or mining, and enjoyed immediate popularity. Encouraged by this, he quickly wrote more poems on the same theme, which were published as Songs of a Sourdough, and achieved a massive sale. When his next collection, Ballads of a Cheechako, proved equally successful, Service could afford to travel widely and live a leisurely life, basing himself in Paris and the French Riviera.

Sandra Hochman is an American author, poet, screenwriter, lyricist and documentary film maker. Her first autobiographical novel Walking Papers was very well received and Philip Roth called it a masterpiece. She has published seven books of poetry; her first book won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Competition. She has also written for The New York Times, Life (magazine), People (magazine), New York (magazine) and many more. She created the Foundation You're an Artist Too, which was an after school program held weekly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her film Year of The Woman was co-produced with Porter Bibb, the producer of The Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter.

Shiv K. Kumar was an Indian English-language poet, playwright, novelist, and short story writer. His grandfather late Tulsi Das Kumar was a school teacher and his father Bishan Das Kumar, was a retired headmaster. The letter 'K' stands for Krishna, i.e. Shiv Krishna Kumar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Garrison Chapin</span> American poet and playwright

Katherine Garrison Chapin, sometimes known by her married name Katherine Biddle, was an American poet, librettist, and playwright. She is best known for two collaborations with composer William Grant Still: And They Lynched Him on a Tree (1940) and Plain-Chant for America (1941).

Alison Stine is an American poet and author whose first novel Road Out of Winter won the 2021 Philip K. Dick Award. Her poetry and nonfiction has been published in a number of newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Paris Review, and Tin House.

References