photo: Pach Bros., New York

Léonie Adams was born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Barnard College in 1922. An educator, consultant, editor, and poet, she was best known for her meticulously crafted lyric poetry, which fused Romantic and Metaphysical elements. In the 1920s, she served in editorial capacities for both Wilson Publishing and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. She then went on to teach English and lecture at various colleges and universities, including New Jersey College for Women, from which she received an honorary doctoral degree in 1950; University of Washington; the Breadloaf Writers Conference; Columbia University; New York University; and Sarah Lawrence College.

From 1948–49, Adams was the Poetry Consultant for Library of Congress (now the U.S. Poet Laureate). Her collections of poetry are Poems: A Selection (1954), which received the Bollingen Prize (a joint-winner with Louise Bogan); This Measure (1933); High Falcon and Other Poems (1929); and Those Not Elect (1925). In 1974, Adams was awarded an Academy Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets. Adams's awards and honors also include a fellowship from The Guggenheim Foundation, grants from The National Council of the Arts and The National Institute of Arts and Letters, and the Shelley Memorial Award. She died in 1988 in New Milford, Connecticut.

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

High Falcon and Other Poems (1929)
Poems: A Selection (1954)
This Measure (1933)
Those Not Elect (1925)