Alicia Suskin Ostriker (born November 11, 1937) is an American poet and scholar who writes Jewish

feminist poetry Feminist poetry is inspired by, promotes, or elaborates on feminist principles and ideas. It might be written with the conscious aim of expressing feminist principles, although sometimes it is identified as feminist by critics in a later era. Some w ...

.Powell C.S. (1994) ''Profile: Jeremiah and Alicia Ostriker – A Marriage of Science and Art'',

Scientific American ''Scientific American'', informally abbreviated ''SciAm'' or sometimes ''SA'', is an American popular science magazine. Many famous scientists, including Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla, have contributed articles to it. In print since 1845, it ...

271(3), 28-31. She was called "America's most fiercely honest poet" by ''Progressive''. Additionally, she was one of the first women poets in America to write and publish poems discussing the topic of motherhood. In 2015, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. In 2018, she was named the New York State Poet Laureate.

Personal life and education

Ostriker was born in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, to David Suskin and Beatrice Linnick Suskin. She grew up in the Manhattan housing projects during the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

. Her father worked for New York City Parks Department. Her mother read her

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

and

Robert Browning Robert Browning (7 May 1812 – 12 December 1889) was an English poet and playwright whose dramatic monologues put him high among the Victorian poets. He was noted for irony, characterization, dark humour, social commentary, historical sett ...

, and Alicia began writing poems, as well as drawing, from an early age. Initially, she had hoped to be an artist and studied art as a teenager. Her books, ''Songs'' (1969) and ''A Dream of Springtime'' (1979), spotlight her own illustrations. Ostriker went to high school at Ethical Culture Fieldston School in 1955. She holds a bachelor's degree from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , p ...

(1959), and an M.A. (1961) and Ph.D. (1964) from the

University of Wisconsin–Madison A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United Stat ...

. In Ostriker's first year of graduate school, she attended a conference where a visiting professor commented on her poetry by saying, "'You women poets are very graphic, aren't you?'" This comment caused her to reflect on the meaning of being a woman poet. She had never thought of that term before and she realized that men were uncomfortable when women wrote about their own bodies. This encounter became a defining moment in her life and from that moment on, she wrote poems discussing the various facets of a woman: sexuality, motherhood, pregnancy, and mortality. On the other hand, her doctoral dissertation, on the work of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the Romantic poetry, poetry and visual art of t ...

, became her first book, ''Vision and Verse in William Blake'' (1965). Later, she edited and annotated Blake's complete poems for Penguin Press. She is married to astronomer Jeremiah P. Ostriker, who taught at Princeton University (1971–2001). They have three children: Rebecca (1963), Eve (1965), and Gabriel (1970). She has been a resident of

Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a municipality with a borough form of government in Mercer County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. It was established on January 1, 2013, through the consolidation of the Borough of Princeton and Princeton Township, both of w ...

Career and work

She began her teaching career at

Rutgers University Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and was ...

in 1965 and has served as an English

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

until she retired in 2004. Ostriker decided to pursue a career while also taking care of her children which was very uncommon during this time. Ostriker's ambition, desire to live a life different from her mother's, and her husband's refusal to let her become a housewife influenced her to make that choice. In 1969, her first collection of poems, ''Songs'', was published by

Holt, Rinehart and Winston Holt McDougal is an American publishing company, a division of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, that specializes in textbooks for use in high schools. The Holt name is derived from that of U.S. publisher Henry Holt (1840–1926), co-founder of the e ...

. This collection contained poems that she wrote while she was still a student. Her poems reflect the influence poets such as Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Keats, W.H. Auden, William Blake, and Walt Whitman have had on her and her poetry. Her second collection of poems published was ''Once More Out of Darkness.'' Majority of the poems were written in free verse. While she was writing this collection of poems, Ostriker became aware of her feminist views. The poems that compose this collection were based on her first two experiences of pregnancy and childbirth as she had her first two children 18 months apart. Discussing these topics in her poems made her cognizant of the fact that she had not previously read poems about these topics and that she was breaking a taboo. Her third volume of poems, ''A Dream of Springtime,'' had poems that demonstrated her growth by discussing her emerging from her past and discovering herself and her identity. Her fourth book of poems, ''

The Mother/Child Papers ''The Mother/Child Papers'' is Alicia Ostriker’s fourth book of poetry. It was originally published by Momentum Press in 1980 and was re-published in 1986 and 2009. The book is divided into four sections, and draws inspiration from the events o ...

'' (1980), a feminist classic, was inspired by the birth of her son during the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (also known by #Names, other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was officially fought between North Vie ...

and weeks after the

Kent State shootings The Kent State shootings, also known as the May 4 massacre and the Kent State massacre,"These would be the first of many probes into what soon became known as the Kent State Massacre. Like the Boston Massacre almost exactly two hundred years bef ...

. Throughout, she juxtaposes musings about motherhood with musings about war. She also discusses her husband and her other two children in her poems. This collection allowed her to explore her identity as a woman by examining her role as a mother, wife, and professor. It did take her ten years to write the poems that make up this collection as she gained more inspiration from events that were happening in society such as the American Feminist movement. Ostriker's books of

nonfiction Nonfiction, or non-fiction, is any document or media content that attempts, in good faith, to provide information (and sometimes opinions) grounded only in facts and real life, rather than in imagination. Nonfiction is often associated with be ...

explore many of the same themes manifest in her verse. They include ''Writing Like a Woman'' (1983), which explores the poems of

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 ...

, Anne Sexton, H.D., May Swenson and

Adrienne Rich Adrienne Cecile Rich ( ; May 16, 1929 – March 27, 2012) was an American poet, essayist and feminist. She was called "one of the most widely read and influential poets of the second half of the 20th century", and was credited with bringing "the ...

, and ''The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions'' (1994), which approaches the

Torah The Torah (; hbo, ''Tōrā'', "Instruction", "Teaching" or "Law") is the compilation of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, namely the books of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In that sense, Torah means the ...

with a midrashic sensibility. She wrote the introduction to

Giannina Braschi Giannina Braschi (born February 5, 1953) is a Puerto Rican poet, novelist, dramatist, and scholar. Her notable works include ''Empire of Dreams'' (1988), ''Yo-Yo Boing!'' (1998) ''and United States of Banana'' (2011). Braschi writes cross-genr ...

's '' Empire of Dreams'', a postmodern poetry classic of the Spanish Caribbean (1994). Ostriker's sixth collection of poems, ''The Imaginary Lover'' (1986), won the William Carlos Williams Award of the Poetry Society of America. The poems included in this collection had a feminist voice, probably due to fact that at the same time, she was doing research for her second feminist criticism book, ''Stealing the Language: the Emergence of Women Poets in America''. In ''The Imaginary Lover'', Ostriker examines the fantasies associated with womanhood by discussing topics such as mother-daughter relationships and marriage. ''The Crack in Everything'' (1996) was a

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

finalist, and won the Paterson Poetry Award and the San Francisco State Poetry Center Award. ''The Little Space: Poems Selected and New, 1968–1998'' was also a 1998 National Book Award finalist. ''Green Age'' (1989) was Ostriker's most visionary and successful collection of poems. Themes analyzed in this collection was time, history and politics, and inner spirituality and how these helped her heal. Ostriker highlights how there is a lack of feminist spirituality in traditional religions. Ostriker's most recent nonfiction book is ''For the Love of God'' (2007), a work that continues her midrash exploration of biblical texts begun with ''Feminist Revision and the Bible'' (1993) and ''The Nakedness of the Fathers: Biblical Visions and Revisions'' (1994). ''Dancing at the Devil's Party'' (2000) examines the work of poets from

and

Walt Whitman Walter Whitman (; May 31, 1819 – March 26, 1892) was an American poet, essayist and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among ...

Maxine Kumin Maxine Kumin (June 6, 1925 – February 6, 2014) was an American poet and author. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1981–1982. Biography Early years Maxine Kumin was born Maxine Winokur on June ...

. Early in the introduction to the book, she disagrees with W. H. Auden's assertion that poetry makes nothing happen. Poetry, Ostriker writes, "can tear at the heart with its claws, make the neural nets shiver, flood us with hope, despair, longing, ecstasy, love, anger, terror". Ostriker's poems have appeared in a wide variety of periodicals, including ''The New Yorker'', ''The Nation'', ''Poetry'', ''American Poetry Review'', ''Paris Review'', ''The Atlantic'', ''Yale Review'', ''Kenyon Review'', ''Iowa Review'', ''Shenandoah Review'', ''Antaeus'', ''Colorado Review'', ''Denver Quarterly'', ''Boulevard'', ''Poetry East'', ''New England Review'', ''Santa Monica Review'', ''Triquarterly Review'', ''Seneca Review'', ''Ms.'', ''Ontario Review'', ''Bridges'', ''Tikkun'', ''Prairie Schooner'', ''Gettysburg Review'', ''Lyric'', ''Fence'', and ''Ploughshares''. A variety of Ostriker's poems have been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Hebrew and Arabic. Stealing the Language has been translated into Japanese and published in Japan. Her fifty-year poetry career is the subject of a collection of essays by American poets and feminist literary scholars, entitled "Every Woman Her Own Theology".

Honors, fellowships, and awards

*1964-1965 American Association of University Women Fellowship *1966 Rutgers University Research Council summer scholar grant *1967 American Foundation for the Advancement of Humanities Younger Scholar Grant *1974, 1976, 1985, 1997, 2000

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

Fellow *1976-1977 National Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry *1977 Breadloaf Writers' Conference Fellowship *1977 New Jersey Arts Council Award in Poetry *1979 A Dream of Springtime selected as one of the best small press titles *1982

Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...

Fellowship for Research in the Humanities *1984-1985

Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

for Poetry *1986 Strousse Poetry Prize, Prairie Schooner *1986 Poetry Society of America William Carlos Williams Prize for The Imaginary Lover *1987

Trustees Award for Excellence in Research *Summer 1987 Djerassi Foundation Resident *1992 New Jersey Arts Council Award in Poetry *1994 Edward Stanley Award, for poems published in Prairie Schooner *1994 Judah Magnes Jewish Museum, Berkeley, Anna David Rosenberg Award for Poems on the Jewish Experience. First Prize for "The Eighth and Thirteenth." *1995 Rutgers University Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributors to Undergraduate Education *1995-6 Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis *1996-7 Associate Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis *1996 Poem in T''he Best American Poetry'' *1996 Poem in ''Yearbook of American Poetry'' *1997 Paterson Poetry Prize for ''The Crack in Everything'' *1998 San Francisco State Poetry Center Award for ''The Crack in Everything'' *1998 Readers’ Choice Award for poems published in ''Prairie Schooner'' *February 1999 Residency at the Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Italy *1999 Poem in ''Pushcart Prize Anthology'' *2000 San Diego Women's Institute for Continuing Jewish Education: Endowment Award *Fall 2001 Visiting Fellowship,

Clare Hall, Cambridge Clare Hall is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. Founded in 1966 by Clare College, Clare Hall is a college for advanced study, admitting only postgraduate students alongside postdoctoral researchers and fellows. It ...

*2002 Larry Levis Prize for poems published in ''Prairie Schooner'' *2003 ''Best American Essays'' Notable Essay for “Milk.” *2003 Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation Fellow *2007 Anderbo Poetry Prize distinguished poem *2008 Outstanding Academic Title, Choice June 2008, for ''For the Love of God.'' *2009

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature. *2010 ''Prairie Schooner'' Virginia Faulkner Award for Excellence in Writing, for poems published in the summer 2009 issue. *2010 Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement for ''The Book of Seventy'' *2011 Named in the list of “10 Great Jewish Poets” in ''Moment'' *2017 National Jewish Book Award in the Poetry category for ''Waiting for the Light'' *2018 Named 11th New York State Poet

Finalists

* 1996 ''The Crack in Everything'' finalist for a

*1998 ''The Little Space'' finalist for a

*1999 ''The Little Space'' finalist for

Lenore Marshall Prize The Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize is administered by the Academy of American Poets selected by the New Hope Foundation in 1994. Established in 1975, this $25,000 award recognizes the most outstanding book of poetry published in the United States in ...

, Academy of American Poets

Bibliography

Poetry

Collections

* *''Once More Out of Darkness and Other Poems''. Berkeley: Berkeley Poets' Press, 1974. *''A Dream of Springtime: Poems 1970–1978''. New York: Smith/Horizon Press, 1979. *''

''. Los Angeles: Momentum Press, 1980. Rpt. Beacon Press, 1986, Pittsburgh, 2008. * *''The Imaginary Lover''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1986. *''Green Age.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1989. *''The Crack in Everything''. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1996. *''The Little Space: Poems Selected and New, 1968–1998''. 1998, University of Pittsburgh. *''The Volcano Sequence.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2002. *''No Heaven.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2005. *''The Book of Seventy.'' Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009, *''At the Revelation Restaurant and Other Poems'', Marick Press, 2010, The Book of Life: Selected Poems 1979-2011, Pittsburgh: The University of Pittsburgh Press, 2012 *''The Old Woman, the Tulip, and the Dog'', University of Pittsburgh Press, 2014, *''Waiting for the Light'', University of Pittsburgh Press, 2017,

Poems

Critical and scholarly books

*''Vision and Verse in William Blake.'' Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1965, *''

: the Complete Poems.'' New York: Penguin Books, 1977. Edited with Notes, pp. 870–1075. * * Stealing the Language: The Emergence of Women's Poetry in America. Boston: Beacon 1986, *''Feminist Revision and the Bible: the Bucknell Lectures on Literary Theory''. London and Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell 1993. *''Empire of Dreams,'' poetry by

; introduction by Alicia Ostriker, Yale University Press, 1994. * *''Dancing at the Devil’s Party: Essays on Poetry, Politics and the Erotic.'' Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press Poets on Poetry series 2000. *

Popular culture

* Alicia Ostriker's poem “A Young Woman, a Tree” appears in

Kurt Cobain Kurt Donald Cobain (February 20, 1967 – April 5, 1994) was an American musician who served as the lead vocalist, guitarist and primary songwriter of the rock band Nirvana. Through his angst-fueled songwriting and anti-establishment persona ...

's posthumously published Journals. * in

Spanglish Spanglish (a portmanteau of the words "Spanish" and "English") is any language variety (such as a contact dialect, hybrid language, pidgin, or creole language) that results from conversationally combining Spanish and English. The term is m ...

novel Yo-Yo Boing! (1998), poets and philosophers discuss the state of American poetry and mention Stealing the Language.