Born
in Newton, Massachusetts in 1915, Isabella Gardner was a great-niece
of Isabella Stewart Gardner (who bequeathed a museum to the
city of Boston) and a cousin of Robert Lowell. With characteristic
self-depreciating humor, Isabella Gardner insisted that she
had received a minimal formal education. In fact, she attended
the Foxcroft School, the Leighton Rollins School of Acting,
and the Embassy School of Acting in London. She was a professional
actress for several years and served as associate editor of
Poetry from 1952 to 1956. During her lifetime Isabella
Gardner published four compact and distinguished books of poetry:
Birthdays from the Ocean (1955), The Looking Glass
(1961), West of Childhood (1965) and That Was Then:
New and Selected Poems (1980), which was nominated for
the American Book Award for Poetry. In 1981, shortly before
her death, Isabella Gardner was selected as the first recipient
of the New York State Walt Whitman Citation of Merit for Poetry.
BOA
books by Isabella Gardner:
The Collected Poems
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