Cynthia Macdonald

Cynthia Macdonald

Cynthia Lee Macdonald (February 2, 1928 – August 3, 2015) was an American poet, educator, and psychoanalyst.^[1]

Life[]

Macdonald was born in Manhattan to screenwriter Leonard Macdonald and his wife Dorothy Kiam Macdonald.^[2]

She earned a B.A. in English from Bennington College in 1950 and pursued studies in voice at the Mannes School of Music in 1951-1952.^[3] She pursued a career in opera and concert singing from 1953-1966.^[4] After changing her focus to poetry, Macdonald received a master's degree in writing and literature from Sarah Lawrence College.^[5]

She went on to teach creative writing at Sarah Lawrence University and Johns Hopkins University.^[6] She co-founded the Creative Writing Program at the University of Houston with fellow poet Stanley Plumly in 1979. She was a member of the English Department at the University of Houston until her retirement in 2004,^[7] receiving the Esther Farfel Award for faculty excellence.

Macdonald also worked as a psychoanalyst, having received a certification from the Houston-Galveston Psychoanalytic Institute in 1986. She specialized in working with people who had writer's block.^[8]

She was a member of the board of directors of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs.^[9]

She wrote the libretto for The Rehearsal (1978), an opera by .

She was the mother of American artist Jennifer Macdonald.

Awards[]

• Three NEA grants (two for poetry and one for a libretto)^{[citation needed][10][11]}
• Guggenheim Fellowship^[12]
• National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award "for "recognition of the contribution of her poetry", 1977^[13]
• O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize^[14]

Works[]

• "Discomfiting the Absolute Splendor", Poetry Foundation
• "The Impossible May Be Possible", Ploughshares (Spring 1999)

Books[]

• Macdonald, Cynthia (June 1972). Amputations: Poems. George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-0656-1.
• Macdonald, Cynthia (April 1977). Transplants: Poems. George Braziller. ISBN 0-8076-0810-6.
• Macdonald, Cynthia (1980-01-01). (W)Holes. NY: Alfred A. Knopf Incorporated. ISBN 0-394-50852-1.
• Macdonald, Cynthia (1985-09-12). Alternate Means of Transport. Knopf. ISBN 0-394-72968-4.
• Macdonald, Cynthia (1992-11-03). Living Wills: New and Selected Poems. Knopf. ISBN 0-679-74278-6.
• Macdonald, Cynthia (1997-01-01). I Can't Remember. Alfred a Knopf Inc. ISBN 0679454578.

References[]

External links[]

• Daniel Bourne (March 30, 1990). "A Conversation With Cynthia Macdonald". Artful Dodge. Archived from the original on September 27, 2008.
• "Cynthia Macdonald." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 18 Nov. 2009