Laura Ulewicz (May 18, 1930 – October 5, 2007) was an American poet.

Biography

Born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

to Polish-American auto workers with strong union ties, she lived in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

and New York before moving to

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

in 1950. There, she soon discovered the literary scene in North Beach, where she became friends with many of the area's

Beat Beat, beats or beating may refer to: Common uses * Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area ** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols ** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men * Battery (c ...

poets, including

Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg (; June 3, 1926 – April 5, 1997) was an American poet and writer. As a student at Columbia University in the 1940s, he began friendships with William S. Burroughs and Jack Kerouac, forming the core of the Beat Gener ...

, Kenneth Rexroth, and Ruth Weiss. She was also in a significant long-term relationship with poet

Jack Gilbert Jack Gilbert (February 18, 1925 – November 13, 2012) was an American poet. Gilbert was acquainted with Jack Spicer and Allen Ginsberg, both prominent figureheads of the Beat Movement, but is not considered a Beat Poet; he described himself as ...

during the latter part of that time period. Ulewicz was a great influence on his early work; in fact much of his characteristic style for which he was later well-known came directly from her, and his acclaimed first book ''Views of Jeopardy'' was dedicated to her. Ulewicz refused to ever be branded a Beat herself. In 1955, at the height of media attention on North Beach and the Beats, she left for

Seattle Seattle ( ) is a seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the seat of King County, Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in both the state of Washington and the Pacific Northwest regio ...

to study with

Stanley Kunitz Stanley Jasspon Kunitz (; July 29, 1905May 14, 2006) was an American poet. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress twice, first in 1974 and then again in 2000. Biography Kunitz was born in Worcester, Massach ...

where her work took on a more formally structured approach. In 1960 she traveled in Europe, eventually moving to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

where she met with THE GROUP at

Edward Lucie-Smith John Edward McKenzie Lucie-Smith (born 27 February 1933), known as Edward Lucie-Smith, is a Jamaican-born English writer, poet, art critic, curator and broadcaster. He has been highly prolific in these fields, writing or editing over a hundred ...

's and joined with other members to give public readings of their work. She won the Guinness Poetry Award at the

Cheltenham Literature Festival ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' Cheltenham Literature Festival, a large-scale international festival of literature held every year in October in the English spa town of Cheltenham, and part of Cheltenham Festivals: also responsible for t ...

in 1964. Her chapbook ''The Inheritance'' was published by Turret Press in 1967. In 1965, Ulewicz returned to live in San Francisco's

Haight-Ashbury Haight-Ashbury () is a district of San Francisco, California, named for the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets. It is also called The Haight and The Upper Haight. The neighborhood is known as one of the main centers of the counterculture ...

district, the new

Hippy A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to different countries around ...

neighborhood, where she opened and managed the I-Thou Coffee House. There, she organized poetry readings, art exhibits and folk concerts. Shortly after her return, a Penguin editor wrote to propose a volume in which her work would be joined with

Denise Levertov Priscilla Denise Levertov (24 October 1923 – 20 December 1997) was a British-born naturalised American poet. She was a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for Poetry. Early life and influences Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Ess ...

and

Sylvia Plath Sylvia Plath (; October 27, 1932 – February 11, 1963) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer. She is credited with advancing the genre of confessional poetry and is best known for two of her published collections, '' Th ...

. Six months later he wrote back to say that he could not get his fellow editors and marketing to support a book of three women poets. During the late 60s, she hosted a radio program on

KQED-FM KQED-FM (88.5 MHz) is a NPR-member radio station in San Francisco, California. Its parent organization is KQED Inc., which also owns its television partners, both of which are PBS member outlets: KQED (channel 9) and KQEH (channel 54). Stu ...

in which writers read and were interviewed. In 1968, while she continued to publish in magazines, she was the recipient of an NEA grant to "assist gifted but unrecognized writers".Stevens, Roger L
"National Endowment for the Arts Annual Fiscal Report 1968"
1969-01-15. Retrieved on 1020-02-09. Ulewicz withdrew to the delta town of

Locke, California Locke, also known as Locke Historic District, is an unincorporated community in California's Sacramento–San Joaquin River Delta. The 10 acre town was first developed between 1893 and 1915 approximately one mile north of the town of Walnut Gr ...

in 1973. Initially, she worked at a local tomato cannery, but was later employed with Child Protection Services in the county's

Social Welfare Department The Social Welfare Department () is a department of the Hong Kong Government responsible for providing welfare services to the community. Responsibilities The department provides services to families and children, the elderly, recovering crimin ...

. After retirement, she managed an art gallery in Locke. Always an inveterate gardener, she raised various kinds of garlic and everlasting flowers to sell at farmers’ markets. During the last thirty years of her life, she continued to write but published little after 1975. She died on October 5, 2007, aged 77, after a short illness. The local community commemorated her in its memorial site. Stephen Vincent, poet, editor, and artist, is the executor of her literary estate.

References

External links

*
"Stephen Vincent's Blog, upon Laura's death"Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library
Emory University
Laura Ulewicz papers, 1951-2010
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ulewicz, Laura 1930 births 2007 deaths American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Writers from Detroit Poets from Michigan Writers from San Francisco People from Sacramento County, California Poets from California 21st-century American poets 21st-century American women writers