- Text from the Introductory Panel -

Emily Dickinson gave significant new direction to an established American female poetic tradition that threads its way through history to our present day. Dickinson’s innovations in form and content have been adopted, propagated, and sometimes torn by poets such as Marianne Moore, Elizabeth Bishop, and Cache Valley’s own May Swenson. Lines of Dissent shows not only the dissenting poetic styles of these great American poets, but also how those values are inextricable tied one to another through sutble and nuanced themes, language, and art.

“Dissent” is phonetic wordplay and can also be read as “Descent,” which allows one to trace the American poetic tradition from generation to generation, poet to poet. Lines of Dissent magnifies these ties and shows how art begets art, poetry begets poetry, driving forward contemporary, moral, and artistic values—even as it diverges from the conventions of the past. For as May Swenson declared in “The Poet as Antispecialist,” “the poet . . . should be in the vanguard of his time.”

May Swenson:

May Swenson was born on May 28, 1913, in Logan, Utah. The oldest of ten children raised by Swedish converts to Mormonism, she attended Logan High School and graduated form Utah State University in 1934. Swenson moved to New York in 1940 and became acquainted with other famous female American poets, including Bishop and Moore. Swenson died on December 4, 1989, after publishing eleven books of poetry and winning many prestigious awards. She was buried in the Logan cemetery where a bench engraved with her poetry commemorates her exceptional life. The Swenson family house was located at 669 East 500 North in Logan. Utah State University is currently developing plans to construct what will be called Swenson House on the site of the original Swenson house that will serve as a venue for poetry readings, lectures, workshops, and other events that connect the university to the surrounding community.

Elizabeth Bishop:

Elizabeth Bishop was born on February 8, 1911, in Worcester, Massachusetts. Shortly after Bishop's birth, her father died. At age five, when her mother was institutionalized, she was cared for by various relatives and moved as far as Nova Scotia before settling with her aunt, Maud Shepherdson, in Boston. Once Bishop found herself in a stable home, she began to dabble in poetry, reading Walt Whitman and Gerard Manley Hopkins. She later attended Vassar College and received a BA in English in 1934. That same year, Bishop met Moore, who began to mentor Bishop and encourage her to pursue a career in writing rather than medicine. In 1946, Bishop published her first book of poetry, North and South. Four years later Bishop met Swenson, and the two developed an intimate friendshop. After living in Brazil, Bishop returned to the United States where she became the poet-in-residence at Harvard University until her death on October 6, 1979.

Marianne Moore:

Marianne Moore was born November 15, 1887, exactly a year and a half after Dickinson's death. From 1905-1909, Moore attended Bryn Mawr College where she first began to publish her poems. Nine years later Moore moved to New York City, where she became acquainted with other poetic greats: T.S. Eliot, William Carlos Williams, Ezra Pound, and Wallace Stevens. Much of Moore's poetry contains a tone of moral convition, perhaps due to lifelong devotion to Presbyterianism. In 1951, Moore was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Collected Poems. More than merely a historic link in poetic tradition, Moore effectively connects the work of Dickinson with that of Bishop. She watched as Dickinson's poetry rose in fame, and found a poetic daughter in Bishop. Writing poetry until the end of her life, Moore died in New York City on February 5, 1972.

Emily Dickinson:

Emily Dickinson was born December 10, 1830, in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a wealthy family. Though she did not rise to fame in her lifetime, she is one of the most iconic poets of the nineteenth century. Dickinson wrote, and preserved, nearly 1,800 poems in her lifetime—only ten of which were published while she was alive. Although often referred to as a recluse, Dickinson maintained regular correspondence with at least one hundred close friends and acquaintances throughout her life. Dickinson's poetry makes unconventional use of capitalization, slant rhyme, and the dash. After Dickinson died in Amherst on May 15, 1886, her sister, Lavinia, promoted the publication of her poems, which then contributed to a poetic tradition characterized by artistic innovation, breaking ground for Dickinson's artistic descendants.