Background
Wolverton, Terry Lynn was born on August 23, 1954 in Cocoa Beach, Florida, United States. Daughter of Donald E. Wolverton and Ruth L. Miller Tackabery.
( In the 1970s, the West Coast feminist art movement coal...)
In the 1970s, the West Coast feminist art movement coalesced around the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles, founded by artist Judy Chicago. Arriving as a young art student in 1976, Terry Wolverton stayed on to become a teacher and co-founder of the Lesbian Art Project, and eventually, executive director. Her journey—emblematic of many women who sought to redefine themselves in the light of feminism—entails confrontation with the damages of sexism, the pitfalls of utopian community, and the forces of social backlash. Terry Wolverton is the author of the novel Bailey’s Beads, two collections of poetry, Black Slip and Mystery Bruise. She has also edited numerous anthologies of gay and lesbian fiction, including His and Hers (Vols I-III).
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0872864030/?tag=2022091-20
( It's easy to see why Terry Wolverton has a reputation a...)
It's easy to see why Terry Wolverton has a reputation as a right-on facilitator of writing workshops: I couldn't find a wasted word in these poems in spite of the rhetorical amplification that governs many of them, nor a threadbare syllogism in the often staccato, sometimes surreal thought-processes along which we are guided. The short "Shadow" section takes the self, the subjectivity, and the Other, as objects of phenomenological (and Lacanian) investigation under the aspects of Specter, Surveillance, Photophobia, Groundhog, Death, and Paradox. It defamiliarizes the proverbial Shadows of Doubt, of Shadow-Boxing, of Your Smile, of Me and My Shadow, and of the Five O'Clock Beard. The transitional "difficult praise" does indeed lead us to litanies of praise for what no one this side of Whitman has a good word for--e.g. Denial, Ultraviolet Rays, Pandora's Box, Bad Drivers, and Traffic on the 405 Freeway--as well as original takes on what everyone else praises but without Wolverton's angular, elliptical, imaginative inner eye: e.g. Blueberries, The Senses, Heaven, Green, Living, Singing, Flowers. Eventually she finds the cosmic (and cosmically comic) capacity to praise both "everyone" and "anyone," not to mention "nothing." These poems vibrate with controlled breathing, like American mantras infused by a higher plane of Eastern scriptural spirituality. I have the highest admiration for this achievement by a poet and human being who has spent a lifetime in preparation for such a crowning masterpiece. It's been said that some are "poets born" and others "poets made." Terry Wolverton is both. Shadow and Praise is a Himalayan Peak rising from the asphalt desert (and I love deserts) of Southern California. Yet it is start-to-finish in the accessible language that has always, for me at least, constituted the most enjoyable and rewarding tradition within SoCal poetry and, indeed, American Literature. Gerald Locklin Professor Emeritus of English California State University, Long Beach
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599480573/?tag=2022091-20
Wolverton, Terry Lynn was born on August 23, 1954 in Cocoa Beach, Florida, United States. Daughter of Donald E. Wolverton and Ruth L. Miller Tackabery.
Bachelor of Philosophy, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, 1977.
Director, The Woman's Building, Los Angeles, 1977-1989; management consultant, Consult'Her, Los Angeles, since 1982; creative writing instructor, Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center, 1988-1997; founder, Writers at Work, Los Angeles, since 1997. Board directors The Woman's Building, 1982-1986, 96-. Member of advisory board Los Angeles Poetry Festival, since 1990, The Fringe Festival, Los Angeles, 1987-1988.
( It's easy to see why Terry Wolverton has a reputation a...)
( In the 1970s, the West Coast feminist art movement coal...)
(Book by Wolverton, Terry)
Member public policy committee California confederation of the Arts, Sacramento, 1986-1988. Member Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association Center United States of America West.