May Swenson (May 28, 1913 – December 4, 1989 / Utah)

''Body my house
my horse my hound
what will I do
when you are fallen''
May Swenson (1919-1995), U.S. poet. Question (l. 1-4). . . New Poets of England and America. Donald Hall, Robert Pack, and Louis Simpson, eds. (1957) Meridian Books.
''I was the horse and the rider,
and the leather I slapped to his rump

spanked my own behind.''
May Swenson (1919-1995), U.S. poet. The Centaur (l. 38-40). . . No More Masks! an Anthology of Poems by Women. Florence Howe and Ellen Bass, eds. (1973) Doubleday Anchor Books.
''quiet, negligent riding,
my toes standing the stirrups,
my thighs hugging his ribs.''
May Swenson (1919-1995), U.S. poet. The Centaur (l. 46-48). . . No More Masks! an Anthology of Poems by Women. Florence Howe and Ellen Bass, eds. (1973) Doubleday Anchor Books.
''Go tie back your hair, said my mother,
and Why is your mouth all green?
Rob Roy, he pulled some clover
as we crossed the field, I told her.''
May Swenson (1919-1995), U.S. poet. The Centaur (l. 61-64). . . No More Masks! an Anthology of Poems by Women. Florence Howe and Ellen Bass, eds. (1973) Doubleday Anchor Books.
''The summer that I was ten—
Can it be there was only one
summer that I was ten? It must

have been a long one then—''
May Swenson (1919-1995), U.S. poet. The Centaur (l. 1-4). . . No More Masks! an Anthology of Poems by Women. Florence Howe and Ellen Bass, eds. (1973) Doubleday Anchor Books.

Quotations