Mary Karr

The poet Mary Karr has received acclaim for her literary work from The New Yorker, Time, People, Entertainment Weekly, Us, and reader/reviewers at Amazon.com. Her memoir, The Liars' Club, published in 1995, was a New York Times bestseller for more than a year, and was named one of the year's best books. It delves vividly and often humorously into her deeply troubled 1960s childhood, most of which was spent in a gritty, industrial section of East Texas. Her follow-up, Cherry, came out in 2000, and garnered more praise.

Related Topics:
Poet - The New Yorker - Time - People - Entertainment Weekly - Us - Amazon.com - Memoir - New York Times

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Three volumes of Karr's Pushcart prize-winning poetry have been published by New Directions: Viper Rum, The Devil's Tour, and Abacus. Her poems have also appeared in a variety of magazines.

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Described (admiringly) as "a scrappy little beast" in Salon magazinehttp://www.salon.com/may97/karr970521.html in 1997, Karr is a controversial figure in the American poetry "establishment," thanks for the most part to her essay, "Against Decoration," which was originally published in the quarterly review Parnassus in 1991 and later reprinted in Viper Rum. In the piece, which called for more direct emotion and less obfuscation and obscure language in contemporary poetry, Karr attacked - and in some cases savaged - a number of well-known and well-connected poets - including James Merrill, Amy Clampitt, and Rosanna Warren (daughter of Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren). As a result, she has earned a reputation for being both courageous and combative.

Related Topics:
Salon - 1997 - Parnassus - 1991 - James Merrill - Amy Clampitt - Rosanna Warren - Pulitzer Prize - Robert Penn Warren

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Karr is the Jesse Truesdell Peck Professor of Literature at Syracuse University. In 2004 she received a Guggenheim Fellowship for Poetry, and was previously a Radcliffe College Bunting Fellow.

Related Topics:
Syracuse University - Guggenheim Fellowship - Radcliffe College

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