Constance Hunting (1925 – April 5, 2006) was an American poet and publisher, widely known in the
Northeastern United States
The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...
. She taught English literature and creative writing at the
University of Maine
The University of Maine (UMaine or UMO) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Orono, Maine. It was established in 1865 as the land-grant college of Maine and is the Flagship universities, flagshi ...
at Orono until her death on April 5, 2006.
Hunting received her B.A. from
Pembroke College in Brown University
Pembroke College in Brown University was the coordinate women's college for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1891 and merged into Brown in 1971.
Founding and early history
The founding of the Women's College Ad ...
in 1947, studied at
Duke University
Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
from 1950 to 1953, and then lived in West Lafayette, Indiana, home of
Purdue University
Purdue University is a public land-grant research university in West Lafayette, Indiana, and the flagship campus of the Purdue University system. The university was founded in 1869 after Lafayette businessman John Purdue donated land and money ...
, until 1968. From that time, she lived in
Orono, Maine
Orono () is a town in Penobscot County, Maine, United States. Located on the Penobscot and Stillwater rivers, it was first settled by American colonists in 1774. They named it in honor of Chief Joseph Orono, a sachem of the indigenous Penobscot ...
, with her husband Robert, who was chair of the English department at UMO until his retirement.
Hunting trained as a classical pianist, but is best known for her work as a poet, and her promotion of other Maine writers through the ''Puckerbrush Review'' literary magazine, which she established in 1971. She was also the founder and editor of Puckerbrush Press, which, over the twenty-eight years of its existence, published a great variety of work by many writers, domestic and international, including
May Sarton
May Sarton was the pen name of Eleanore Marie Sarton (May 3, 1912 – July 16, 1995), a Belgian-American poet, novelist and memoirist. Although her best work is strongly personalised with erotic female imagery, she resisted the label of ‘lesbi ...
,
James Kelman,
Angelica Garnett
Angelica Vanessa Garnett (née Bell; 25 December 1918 – 4 May 2012), was a British writer, painter and artist. She was the author of the memoir ''Deceived with Kindness'' (1984), an account of her experience growing up at the heart of t ...
, and other figures from the
Bloomsbury Group
The Bloomsbury Group—or Bloomsbury Set—was a group of associated English writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century, including Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, E. M. Forster and Lytton Strac ...
.
Works
* After the Stravinsky Concert and Other Poems (1969)
* Cimmerian and Other Poems (1972)
* Beyond the Summerhouse: A Narrative Poem (1976)
* Nightwalk and Other Poems (1980)
* Dream Cities (1982)
* Collected Poems 1969–1982 (1983)
* A Day at the Shore: A Poem (1983)
* Between the Worlds: Poems 1983–1988 (1989)
* Hawkedon (1990)
* The Myth of Horizon (1991)
* At Rochebonne: A Poem (1994)
* The Shape of Memory (1998)
* Natural Things: Collected Poems 1969–1998 (1999)
* An Amazement (2002)
* The Sky Flower (2005)
Her papers are currently housed at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University.
External links
Feature on Huntingfrom UMaine Today magazine
Hunting interviewed by Sandy Phippenon MPBN's "A Good Read"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hunting, Constance
1925 births
2006 deaths
Pembroke College in Brown University alumni
Brown University alumni
Duke University alumni
People from Orono, Maine
University of Maine faculty
Writers from Rhode Island
Purdue University faculty
People from West Lafayette, Indiana