The Key to Everything

An intimate portrait of the twentieth-century American poet May Swenson (19131989) was one of the most important and original poets of the twentieth century. The Key to Everything is a biography of this experimental American modernist that draws directly from her unpublished diaries and her letters to friends, family, and colleagues, most notably Elizabeth Bishop. In 1952, Swenson wrote in her diary, I want to confirm my life in a narrativemy Lesbianism, the hereditary background of my parents, grandparents, origins in the old country. Taking up Swensons uncompleted autobiographical plan, Margaret Brucia tells Swensons story as much as possible through her own words. While chronicling the whole of Swensons life, this book focuses on the period from 1936 to 1959, when she came of age artistically and personally in New York City. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Federal Writers Project, Greenwich Village, and the emergence of gay culture, Swensons diaries lay bare her aspirations, fears, joys, and disappointments. Readers see the poet and person emerge, inextricably entwined, as Swenson describes her struggles with poverty, anonymity, and predatory men; her romantic relationships; the people she met, the books she read, and the work she produced. The most detailed and intimate biography of Swenson to date, The Key to Everything is a unique portrait of a poet who resisted labels throughout her life.