Maura Stanton

Maura Stanton (born September 9, 1946), is an American poet, and writer.

Biography

Maura Stanton was born to Joseph Stanton, a salesman, and Wanda Haggard Stanton, a nurse, in Evanston, Illinois. She received her B.A. from the University of Minnesota in 1969, and her M.F.A. in 1971 from the University of Iowa.^[1]

She married Richard Cecil in 1972. She has taught at the State University of New York at Cortland (1972–1973), the University of Richmond (1973–1977), Humboldt State University (1977–1978), the University of Arizona (1978–1982), and Indiana University, since 1982. She was also named as the distinguished author in residence at Mary Washington College for the 1981–1982 academic year.^[2][3]

Her first book of poetry, SNOW ON SNOW, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Award in 1975, and was reissued by Carnegie-Mellon University Press in 1993 as part of its contemporary classics series. Her second book, CRIES OF SWIMMERS, was published by the University of Utah Press in 1984 and was reissued by Carnegie-Mellon University Press in 1991. Her work appeared in Ploughshares.^[4]

Awards

• Lawrence Foundation Prize in Fiction from Michigan Quarterly Review in 1982
• Frances Steloff Fiction Prize in 1975
• National Endowment for the Arts grants in 1974 and 1982
• 1998 Nelson Algren Awards "Ping-Pong"
• 2001 Richard Sullivan Award in Short Fiction
• 2003 Michigan Literary Fiction Award

Works

• Little-Known Birl of The Inner Eye (after the picture by Morris Graves), Oxford Poetry Vol III No 1 (Winter 1986)^[5]
• Through the Dark, Caffine Destiny online
• Royal Harp, The Atlantic, October 2008
• God's Ode to Creation, Verse Daily

Poetry Books

• Snow on Snow. Yale University Press. January 1, 1975.
• Cries of Swimmers. University of Utah Press. January 1, 1984. ISBN 978-0-88748-124-6.
• Tales of the Supernatural. David R Godine. October 1988. ISBN 978-0-87923-750-9.
• Glacier Wine. Carnegie Mellon Press. January 2001. ISBN 978-0-88748-340-0.
• Life Among the Trolls. Carnegie Mellon Press. April 1998. ISBN 978-0-88748-267-0.
• Immortal Sofa. University of Illinois Press. July 28, 2008. ISBN 978-0-252-07580-3.

Short Story Books

• THE COUNTRY I COME FROM. Milkweed Editions. October 1988. ISBN 978-0-915943-33-3.
• Do not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling. University of Notre Dame Press. November 28, 2001. ISBN 978-0-268-02556-4.
• CITIES IN THE SEA. University of Michigan Press. Fall 2003. ISBN 978-0-472-11364-4.

Novels

• Molly Companion. Bobbs-Merrill. January 1, 1977.

Criticism

• A Relative Stranger, Ploughshares, Winter 1990–91
• What Keeps Us Here, Ploughshares, Winter 1992–93

Anthologies

• Jim Elledge, Susan Swartwout, eds. (1999). Real things. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-33434-3.
• Paul Muldoon, David Lehman, eds. (2005). The Best American Poetry 2005. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-7432-5738-1.
• Jack Elliott Myers Jack Elliott Myers, Roger Weingarten, eds. (2005). New American Poets. David R. Godine Publisher. ISBN 978-1-56792-302-5.

Ploughshares

• The Pear Orchard, Ploughshares, , Summer 1972
• The Robber Bridegroom, Ploughshares, , Spring 1975
• Circles, Ploughshares, , Spring 1977
• Bathroom Walls, Ploughshares, Spring 1977
• New Neighbors in the South, Ploughshares, Spring 1977
• Heaven, Ploughshares, Winter 1984
• Attendant Lord, Ploughshares, Winter 1984
• The Cuckoo Clock, Ploughshares, Winter 1984
• Space, Ploughshares, Spring 1985
• March, Ploughshares, Spring 1985
• The Palace, Ploughshares, Fall 1985
• (guest editor), Ploughshares, Spring 1989
• Number Seventeen, Ploughshares, Fall 1991
• The House of Cleopatra, Ploughshares, Spring 1992
• Squash Flowers, Ploughshares, Spring 1997
• Ben Nevis, Ploughshares, Winter 1997–98
• Happiness, Ploughshares, Winter 1997–98
• Milk of Human Kindness, Ploughshares, Fall 2001
• Glass House, Ploughshares, Fall 2001

Reviews

• All Things Considered, Catherine Bowman, NPR, July 30, 1998

The poet and novelist Maura Stanton's interwoven short stories about growing up in the Midwest trace the awakening of adult consciousness in its unnamed narrator, a strongly moral, sensible girl, resentful of the world's ability to impinge on even the most serene domestic scenes and the complicity of memory in the process: Inside everyone's head, just below their pretty or bored wandering eyes, the strangest and most frightening pictures must be permanently etched. ^[6]

References

1. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creative Writing, Laurie Rozakis
2. Dictionary of Literary Biography on Maura Stanton
3. http://www.indiana.edu/~mfawrite/stanton.html
4. http://www.pshares.org/authors/author-detail.cfm?authorID=1464
5. http://www.gnelson.demon.co.uk/oxpoetry/index/i47.html
6. MAXINE CHERNOFF (February 26, 1989). "A CHILDHOOD COLD AND WET". The New York Times.

External links

• Heather Madden, An Interview with Maura Stanton, Memorious 7
• Maura Stanton, Photographs from the American Poetry Review Records, 1971–1998, Ms. Coll. 349