The first child of Margaret and Dan Arthur Swenson, she grew up as the eldest of 10 children in a Mormon household where Swedish was spoken regularly and English was a second language. Much of her later poetry works were devoted to children (e.g. the collection Iconographs, 1970). She also translated the work of contemporary Swedish poets, including the selected poems of Tomas Tranströmer.

Swenson attended Utah State University in Logan in the class of 1939, where she received a bachelor's degree. She taught poetry at as poet-in-residence, including Bryn Mawr, the University of North Carolina, the University of California at Riverside, Purdue University and Utah State University. From 1959 to 1966 she worked as an editor at New Directions publishers. Swenson left New Directions Press in 1966 in an effort to focus completely on her own writing. She also served as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 1913 until her death in 1989.

Her poems were published in Antaeus, The Atlantic Monthly, Carleton Miscellany, The Nation, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Saturday Review, Parnassus and Poetry. Her poem Question was also published in Stephenie Meyer's book The Host.

She received much recognition for her work. Some of which include:

Swenson's work shows strong use of imagery and use of eroticism. She continually questions existence and writes much on the topic of love. Her love poems concerned "human nature, the natural world, geography, and invention. They are poems of intense love between women, written at a time when that genre was rare in poetry" (Schulman). Although she did not go out of her way to make known her lesbian sexual identity, she also did not hide it. In her career she has turned down publication offers to use her poetry in a compilation of lesbian writing, yet she did agree in one case, which she explained as a tasteful collection she did not mind contributing to. Her poetry collection The Complete Love Poems of May Swenson focused mostly on poems in which sexual imagery is especially abundant. One example, the poem "In the Yard" reads:

Swenson's style is described as rhythmic. Her creative style merges in her writing with her interest in plant and animal behavior with works such as "The Cross Spider". As well as natural themes, some of her work focuses on scientific research, for example the exploration of space. Fascinated by perception, much of Swenson's work contains key themes of how this human perception can be found in landscapes and wider contexts. One source comments that her use of nature and sexuality are not used separately, but that nature is something we are all part of, and in that commonality we share energy derived from sexuality.

Working with the Barney, Utah State University (USU) has created the "May Swenson Project". Supported by students and teachers, it has publicized Swenson's work at USU, as well as her influence across the nation. In her name, USU has dedicated a May Swenson room in the English Department and another in the USU Merrill-Cazier Library. Funds are being sought to establish an endowed chair in Swenson's name.

The May Swenson Poetry Award, sponsored by Utah State University Press, is a competitive prize granted annually to an outstanding collection of poetry in English. Open to published and unpublished writers, with no limitation on subject, the competition honors May Swenson as one of America's most vital and provocative poets of the twentieth century. Judges for the competition have included Mary Oliver, Maxine Kumin, John Hollander, Mark Doty, Alice Quinn, Harold Bloom, and others from the first tier of American letters.

http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/

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