Book Launch Dec 2, 2012: With Robert Lowell and His Circle Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others by Kathleen Spivack

My friend, the acclaimed poet Kathleen Spivack has a new memoir out: With Robert Lowell and His Circle. I had the honor to interview Kathleen in 2010, and had a chance to question her about the Boston and Cambridge literary scene in the 50s, 60s,and 70s. She told me about playing ping-pong with Elizabeth Bishop, and her tutorials with Robert Lowell. She also told me about Anne Sexton and Sylvia Plath and the Robert Lowell workshop at Boston University they were all in. Kathleen also has a big Somerville connection. She lived in Somerville as a single mother some decades ago, and is currently a member of the Somerville Bagel Bards. This important new memoir was reviewed in the Globe recently.  Here is some information about the book and the book launch that is to happen on Dec.2:

 Please celebrate with us!
The Harvard Bookstore and the Grolier Poetry Bookshop
invite you to the book launch of

With Robert Lowell and His Circle
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others
by Kathleen Spivack

A memoir of a famous poetry circle published by the University Press of New England, November, 2012

Sunday, December 2, 2012, 4-6 p.m.

Co-hosted by the Harvard Bookstore and the Grolier Poetry Bookshop
Refreshments, books, and celebration at both locations

The Harvard Bookstore: 1256 Massachusetts Ave, Cambridge, MA, 617-661-1515
The Grolier Poetry Bookshop: 6 Plympton St, Cambridge, MA, 617-547-4648

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The book is available for pre-order through the University Press of New England, and will be released on November 13.
Call toll-free, 1-800-421-1561, email university.press@dartmouth.edu, or visit their website here.
Also available at your local bookstores and online.

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“This book is absorbing and alive, human and compelling . . . the best memoir yet about Robert Lowell.”
— Steven Gould Axelrod, University of California, Riverside

“A portrait [of Lowell] that serves to define his role as poet and teacher in fresh and significant ways . . . . This is a memoir that will make an impact right  away and that will be referred to by scholars, readers and biographers for many years to come.”
— Thomas Travisano, Hartwick College

“I devoured your book in one sitting last weekend; it’s extraordinarily evocative of the poet and his time, your time.
Thank you so much for writing it . . .”  
— Don Share, Senior Editor, Poetry Magazine

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With Robert Lowell and His Circle
Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Elizabeth Bishop, Stanley Kunitz, & Others
by Kathleen Spivack

A memoir of a famous poetry circle

 In 1959 Kathleen Spivack won a fellowship to study at Boston University with Robert Lowell. Her fellow students were Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton, among others. Thus began a relationship with the famous poet and his circle that would last to the end of his life in 1977 and beyond. Spivack presents a lovingly rendered story of her time among some of the most esteemed artists of a generation. Part memoir, part loose collection of anecdotes, artistic considerations, and soulful yet clear-eyed reminiscences of a lost time and place, hers is an intimate portrait of the often suffering Lowell, the great and near great artists he attracted, his teaching methods, his private world, and the significant legacy he left to his students. Through the story of a youthful artist finding her poetic voice among literary giants, Spivack thoughtfully considers how poets work. She looks at friendships, addiction, despair, perseverance and survival, and how social changes altered lives and circumstances. This is a beautifully written portrait of friends who loved and lived words, and made great beauty together.

 A touching and deeply revealing look into the lives and thoughts of some of the most influential artists of the twentieth century, With Robert Lowell and His Circle will appeal to writers, students, and thoughtful literary readers, as well as to scholars.