Anne Stevenson, the daughter of a philosopher, hoped to be a musician but switched to literature at college. In Oxford she wrote a saga about a New England family, but her poetry was overshadowed by her controversial biography of Sylvia Plath [UK]:
Today she might enjoy a far greater profile among the poetry-reading public were it not for her indifference to self-promotion on the literary circuit. 'I've cancelled all my subscriptions to poetry magazines,' she says. 'I prefer to read the New Scientist. My trouble is that I don't relate very well to today's popular idea of what a poet should be. I never wanted to be a pop star.' She has agreed to take part in a round-table event in Newcastle on National Poetry Day next Thursday ('it would seem curmudgeonly not to'), but says: 'I truly hate marketing promotions, and I don't at all approve of encouraging wannabe poets to write bad poetry.'
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on Thursday, August 03, 2006 at 3:39 PM.
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