Julie Madison Suk ( Gaillard; born 1924) is an American prize-winning poet and writer from

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. She is the author of six volumes of poetry - ''The Medicine Woman'' (St. Andrews Press, 1980), ''Heartwood'' (Briarpatch Press, 1991), ''The Angel of Obsession'' (The University of Arkansas Press, 1992), ''The Dark Takes Aim'' (Autumn House Press, 2003), ''Lie Down With Me'' (Autumn House Press, 2011), and ''Astonished To Wake'' (Jacar Press, 2016), and co-editor of ''Bear Crossings: an Anthology of North American Poets''. She is included in ''The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry''. Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including ''

The Georgia Review ''The Georgia Review'' is a literary journal based in Athens, Georgia. Founded at University of Georgia in 1947, the journal features poetry, fiction, essays, book reviews, and visual art. The journal has won National Magazine Awards for Fiction ...

'', ''Great River Review'', '' The Laurel Review'', ''

Ploughshares ''Ploughshares'' is an American literary journal established in 1971 by DeWitt Henry and Peter O'Malley in The Plough and Stars, an Irish pub in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, ''Ploughshares'' has been based at Emerson College in Boston. ...

'', ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'', '' Shenandoah'', and ''

TriQuarterly ''TriQuarterly'' is a name shared by an American literary magazine and a series of books, both operating under the aegis of Northwestern University Press. The journal is published twice a year and features fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, liter ...

''.

Life and career

Suk was born and raised in

Mobile, Alabama Mobile ( , ) is a city and the county seat of Mobile County, Alabama, United States. The population within the city limits was 187,041 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, down from 195,111 at the 2010 United States census, 2010 cens ...

in 1924. She attended

Stephens College Stephens College is a private women's college in Columbia, Missouri. It is the second-oldest women's educational establishment that is still a women's college in the United States. It was founded on August 24, 1833, as the Columbia Female Acade ...

and the

University of Alabama The University of Alabama (informally known as Alabama, UA, or Bama) is a Public university, public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and la ...

. In 1944 she married naval officer William Joseph Suk, who later founded the Charlotte engineering services company ''Polytech Services, Inc.'' shortly after the couple and their three children Julie, Bill, and Palmer moved from

Shaker Heights, Ohio Shaker Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. As of the 2020 Census, the city population was 29,439. Shaker Heights is an inner-ring streetcar suburb of Cleveland, abutting the eastern edge of the city's limits. In July 1911, ...

to Charlotte in 1966. For many years she was an artist, painting landscapes in oils. It was not until the 1960s that Suk took up poetry, inspired in part by the work of French poet

Saint-John Perse Alexis Leger (; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse (; also Saint-Leger Leger), was a French poet-diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1960 "for the soaring flight and evocative ...

. She has lived in Charlotte since 1966.The Charlotte Observer: ''The poet next door'', by Pam Kelley, January 8, 2012

Awards

* In 2004 Julie Suk received the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement Award from

Central Piedmont Community College Central Piedmont Community College (Central Piedmont) is a public community college in Charlotte, North Carolina. With an enrollment of more than 40,000 students annually, Central Piedmont is the second largest community college in the North Caro ...

* ''The Dark Takes Aim'' won the 2003 North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Book Award and The Oscar Arnold Young Award from The Poetry Council of North Carolina. * Julie Suk was awarded the 1993 Bess Hokin Prize from ''

'' magazine. * ''The Angel of Obsession'' won the 1992 Arkansas Poetry Award and the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award.North Carolina Literary and Historical Association: Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry

Works

Poetry collections

* * * * * * Astonished To Wake: Poems. Jacar Press, Durham NC. 2016.

In anthologies

* * * *

References

External links

* ttps://archive.today/20130204150833/http://www.thepilot.com/news/2012/feb/12/tracing-writers-roots-through-poems/ The Pilot: ''Tracing Writer's Roots Through Poems'', by Ruth Moose, February 12, 2012 {{DEFAULTSORT:Suk, Julie 1924 births Living people 21st-century American women American women poets Stephens College alumni University of Alabama alumni