Rosemary Thomas (February 16, 1901 – April 7, 1961) was an American poet and teacher, known for her book of poems ''Immediate Sun'', which won the Twayne First Book Contest in 1951.

Education

Thomas graduated from

Smith College Smith College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts Women's colleges in the United States, women's college in Northampton, Massachusetts. It was chartered in 1871 by Sophia Smith (Smith College ...

in 1923. In 1950, she received a Master of Arts degree from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

for an essay on Lawrence Durrell, the British poet and novelist. She taught creative writing at various schools including

Spence School , motto_translation = Not for school, but for life we learn , founder = Clara B. Spence , tuition = $60,880 (2022-2023) , chair = , head_label = , head ...

and

Brearley School The Brearley School is an all-girls private school in New York City, located on the Upper East Side neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan. The school is divided into lower (kindergarten – grade 4), middle (grades 5–8) and upper (grades 9– ...

in New York, Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania and Oxford School in Hartford, Connecticut.

Literary career

In 1951, Thomas won the Twayne First Book Contest for her only book of poems, ''Immediate Sun''. The book had a foreword written by Archibald MacLeish, who described her poems as having "a common quality, a characteristic idiom, and inflection the reader would recognize again as a man recognizes the inflection of a decisive voice". The book includes a poem about her brother-in-law, Canadian tennis star J.F. Foulkes, entitled "The Colonel". Her poems were also published in the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', and in other magazines. The final years of her life, which she devoted entirely to her writing, were divided between her homes in Duxbury, Massachusetts, and

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, where she died in 1961.

Legacy

A posthumous collection of her poems was published in 1968, titled ''Selected Poems of Rosemary Thomas'', with a foreword by

Mark van Doren Mark Van Doren (June 13, 1894 – December 10, 1972) was an American poet, writer and critic. He was a scholar and a professor of English at Columbia University for nearly 40 years, where he inspired a generation of influential writers and thin ...

. He wrote: "Rosemary Thomas's poems will last, as all things excellent do, for the simple reason that nothing like them exists elsewhere." In 2004, her poem "The Elephants Pass Carnegie Hall" was set to music by composer

David Leisner David Leisner is a classical guitarist, composer, and teacher at the Manhattan School of Music. He previously also taught at the New England Conservatory. Prior to being disabled by focal dystonia Focal dystonia, or focal task specific dystonia, ...

in his piece ''A Timeless Procession''. It was first performed in 2011 at

Symphony Space Symphony Space, founded by Isaiah Sheffer and Allan Miller, is a multi-disciplinary performing arts organization at 2537 Broadway on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Performances take place in the 760-seat Peter Jay Sharp Theatre (also called Pe ...

in New York City. The program for the performance records that Leisner discovered Thomas's poems by chance at a library book sale in the late 1980s. He describes her as a "lyrical, imaginative, spiritual-minded poet whose work simply begged me to set it to music". The English Language and Literature Department at

awards the Rosemary Thomas Poetry Prize annually to the best poem or group of poems.

References

External links

Selected Poems of Rosemary Thomas
at Google Books
Rosemary Thomas papers, 1930–1966
at Columbia University Libraries
Search results for Rosemary Thomas
poems published in the ''New Yorker'' between 1954 and 1961 {{DEFAULTSORT:Thomas, Rosemary 1901 births 1961 deaths American women poets 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers Smith College alumni Columbia University alumni Poets from Massachusetts Schoolteachers from Pennsylvania Schoolteachers from New York (state) People from Duxbury, Massachusetts Schoolteachers from Connecticut Poets from New York City 20th-century American educators 20th-century American women educators The New Yorker people