Cynthia Macdonald
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
February 2, 1928
- Poet
- educator
Cynthia Macdonald | |
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 Macdonald in 1979 | |
| Born | Cynthia Lee Macdonald February 2, 1928 |
| Died | August 3, 2015 (aged 87) |
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| Alma mater | |
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| Children | Jennifer Macdonald |
Cynthia Lee Macdonald (February 2, 1928 – August 3, 2015) was an American poet, educator, and psychoanalyst.[1]
Macdonald was born in Manhattan to screenwriter Leonard Lee and his wife Dorothy Kiam.[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 Thomas Benjamin.
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]
- 1977 National Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters award "for "recognition of the contribution of her poetry", 1977[12]
- 1983 Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry[13]
- 1992 O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize[14]
