The Key to Everything: May Swenson, A Writer's Life by Margaret A. Brucia

An intimate portrait of the twentieth-century American poet May Swenson (1913–1989) who was one of the most important and original poets of the twentieth century. The Key to Everything is a biography of this experimental American modernist that draws directly from her unpublished diaries and her letters to friends, family, and colleagues, most notably Elizabeth Bishop. In 1952, Swenson wrote in her diary, “I want to confirm my life in a narrative—my Lesbianism, the hereditary background of my parents, grandparents, origins in the ‘old country.’” 

This book focuses on the period from 1936 to 1959, when she came of age artistically and personally in New York City. Against the backdrop of the Great Depression, the Federal Writers’ Project, Greenwich Village, and the emergence of gay culture, Swenson’s diaries lay bare her aspirations, fears, joys, and disappointments. Readers see the poet and person emerge, inextricably entwined, as Swenson describes her struggles with poverty, anonymity, and predatory men; her romantic relationships; and the people she met, the books she read, and the work she produced.
 
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'Margaret Brucia has scrupulously combed the personal records of May Swenson to write this long-overdue biography. What emerges is an intimate portrait of a woman and poet breathing deeply of the rich world around her' - Peter-Christian Aigner, director of The Gotham Center for New York City History