Katha Pollitt
Encyclopedia
Katha Pollitt is an American feminist poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues, including abortion rights, racism
, welfare reform
, feminism
, and poverty
.
called "the best place to go for original thinking on the left." Pollitt has contributed to The Nation since 1980, first serving as editor for the Books & the Arts section before becoming a regular columnist in 1995. She has also published in numerous other periodicals, including The New Yorker
, Harper's Magazine
, Ms. Magazine
, The New York Times
, The Atlantic, The New Republic
, Glamour
, Mother Jones
, and the London Review of Books
. Her poetry has been republished in many anthologies and magazines, including The New Yorker
and The Oxford Book of American Poetry
(2006). She has appeared on NPR's Fresh Air
and All Things Considered
, Charlie Rose
, The McLaughlin Group
, CNN
, Dateline NBC
and the BBC
.
Much of Pollitt's writing is in defense of contemporary feminism and other forms of 'identity politics
' and tackles perceived misimpressions by critics from across the political spectrum; other frequent topics include abortion
, the media, U.S. foreign policy, the politics of poverty
(especially welfare reform
), and human rights
movements around the world. Her more controversial writings include "Not Just Bad Sex" (1993), a negative review of Katie Roiphe
's The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism on Campus
, and "Put Out No Flags" (2001), a Nation essay on post-9/11 America in which she explained her refusal to fly an American flag
out of her living room window.
In addition to her writing, Pollitt is a well-known public speaker and has lectured at dozens of colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale
, Princeton
, Brooklyn College
, UCLA, the University of Mississippi
and Cornell. She has taught poetry at Princeton
, Barnard
and the 92nd Street Y
, and women's studies at the New School University. Pollitt is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the National Magazine Award
(1992, 2003), the American Book Award
"Lifetime Achievement Award" (2010), and the National Book Critics Circle Award
(1983). She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
, the National Endowment for the Arts
, and the Fulbright Program
.
Pollitt earned a B.A.
in philosophy
from Radcliffe College
in 1972 and an M.F.A.
in writing from Columbia University
in 1975. She is currently working on a book about abortion politics.
describes Pollitt as "a good old-fashioned feminist and leftist columnist for The Nation, as well as a prize-winning poet." The process of navigating between the political and poetic has been the subject of many interviews, including a noteworthy conversation with Adam Gopnik
for Granta
in 2009.
), a collection of nineteen essays that first appeared in The Nation and other journals. The book's title was a reference to a line in Mary Wollstonecraft's
1794 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
– "I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures."
Most of her Nation essays from 1994 to 2001 were collected in Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics and Culture, published by the Modern Library
in 2001. Booklist
reviewed the book favorably in 2001:
On June 13, 2006, Random House
published her book Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, a collection of 84 of her Nation columns. Publisher's Weekly called it, "invariably witty, astute and relentlessly logical...no conservative interested in public debate should ignore so formidable an opponent."
In 2007, Pollitt published Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories (Random House
), a collection of personal essays. Learning to Drive is a departure from her political commentary, covering a range of topics from webstalking a cheating boyfriend to what she learned about her parents using the Freedom of Information Act. The New York Review of Books
calls Learning to Drive, “A powerful personal narrative ... full of insight and charm ... Pollitt is her own Jane Austen
character ... haughty and modest, moral and irresponsible, sensible and, happily for us, lost in sensibility.”
(1983). Critics noted Pollitt's "...poise, her skillful use of language, mature ear for rhythm, and her intellectual and cerebral interpretations. Reviewers credit her with unusual maturity as a poet, praising her ability to contrast romance with disillusionment and her skill at maintaining an objective distance from her subjects."
Her second volume of poetry, The Mind-Body Problem, was published in 2009 and excerpted at Granta
. United States Poet Laureate
Kay Ryan
wrote of The Mind-Body Problem, “It’s awfully good to have such a great-hearted poet as Katha Pollitt take on mortality’s darkest themes. Again and again she finds a human-sized crack of light and squeezes us through with her.”
Pollitt wrote extensively of her family in Learning to Drive, which is dedicated to her parents. New York Times Sunday Book Reviewer Toni Bentley writes about the discoveries she made in adulthood about her parents:
"Her father, Basil Riddiford Pollitt, a lawyer, was a kind of real-life Communist Atticus Finch
, complete with an F.B.I. file about “five inches thick.” People had been informing on him since his high school days, and he lost his scholarship to Harvard as a 17-year-old freshman for “ ‘making communistic speeches and engaging in communistic activities.’ ” As a lawyer he argued that “grand juries were unconstitutional because they systematically excluded blacks and women.” (Decades later, the Supreme Court finally agreed with him.) He sounds like a man who lived up to his wonderful name.
Pollitt’s mother, Leanora Levine Pollitt, was Jewish and also had an F.B.I. file, which revealed that she had had an illegal abortion and had protested against segregated restaurants and Nazi collaborators. She was beautiful and had received nine proposals before marrying Basil, played classical piano, could recite Heine
in German, knew what President and Mrs. Roosevelt were doing at any moment of any day and had begun (though did not finish) law school. She had, Pollitt writes, her “dream self,” which included being a journalist and a “fiery revolutionary.” In a poignant legacy, the daughter has manifested the mother’s dream. Beautiful Leanora, however, drank herself to death by the age of 54."
, author of the New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist." They later divorced. They have a daughter, Sophie Pollitt-Cohen (September 25, 1987), author of the bestselling book, The Notebook Girls, written while Pollitt-Cohen was a student at Stuyvesant High School
.
On April 29, 2006, Pollitt married the political theorist Steven Lukes
. They currently reside in Manhattan
.
The Frost Place
poet in residence (1977)
National Book Critics Circle Award
in Poetry (for Antarctic Traveler, 1983)
National Endowment for the Arts
(grant, 1984)
Academy of American Poets
("Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award," 1984)
Fulbright Scholarship (1985)
Arvon Foundation Prize
(1986)
New York Foundation for the Arts
(1987)
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
(Fellowship, 1987)
National Magazine Award
(for "Essays and Criticism," 1992)
Whiting Foundation Writing Award (1992)
Planned Parenthood Federation of America ("Maggie Award," 1993)
Freedom from Religion Foundation
("Freethought Heroine Award," 1995)
National Women's Political Caucus
("Exceptional Merit Media Award," 2001)
National Magazine Award
(for "Best Columns and Commentary," 2003)
American Book Award
("Lifetime Achievement Award," 2010)
The Nation Institute (Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow)
Freedom From Religion Foundation
(Honorary Board of distinguished achievers 2010)
, who named her number 74 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
, because of her essay "Put Out No Flags," in which she says: "The flag stands for jingoism
and vengeance and war." Goldberg criticized what he perceived to be her lack of patriotism
in the time shortly after the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Pollitt's response, in the Introduction to Virginity or Death!, was "(Memo to self: must try harder.)"
Feminist author Camille Paglia described Pollitt as a "whiny troll, an unscrupulous and unreliable critic and a cultural philistine...She's a good example of the phony prep-school/trust-fund leftism suffusing the incestuously interwined Ivy League cliques who run the corrupt East Coast literary and magazine establishment."
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
, welfare reform
Welfare reform
Welfare reform refers to the process of reforming the framework of social security and welfare provisions, but what is considered reform is a matter of opinion. The term was used in the United States to support the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act...
, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
, and poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
.
Professional Life
Pollitt is best known for her bimonthly column "Subject to Debate" in The Nation magazine which The Washington PostThe Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
called "the best place to go for original thinking on the left." Pollitt has contributed to The Nation since 1980, first serving as editor for the Books & the Arts section before becoming a regular columnist in 1995. She has also published in numerous other periodicals, including The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
, Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine
Harper's Magazine is a monthly magazine of literature, politics, culture, finance, and the arts, with a generally left-wing perspective. It is the second-oldest continuously published monthly magazine in the U.S. . The current editor is Ellen Rosenbush, who replaced Roger Hodge in January 2010...
, Ms. Magazine
Ms. magazine
Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin together with founding editors Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary Peacock, that first appeared in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine...
, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, The Atlantic, The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, Glamour
Glamour (magazine)
Glamour is a women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. Founded in 1939 in the United States, it was originally called Glamour of Hollywood....
, Mother Jones
Mother Jones (magazine)
Mother Jones is an American independent news organization, featuring investigative and breaking news reporting on politics, the environment, human rights, and culture. Mother Jones has been nominated for 23 National Magazine Awards and has won six times, including for General Excellence in 2001,...
, and the London Review of Books
London Review of Books
The London Review of Books is a fortnightly British magazine of literary and intellectual essays.-History:The LRB was founded in 1979, during the year-long lock-out at The Times, by publisher A...
. Her poetry has been republished in many anthologies and magazines, including The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
and The Oxford Book of American Poetry
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
(2006). She has appeared on NPR's Fresh Air
Fresh Air
Fresh Air is an American radio talk show broadcast on National Public Radio stations across the United States. The show is produced by WHYY-FM in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Its longtime host is Terry Gross. , the show was syndicated to 450 stations and claimed 4.5 million listeners. The show...
and All Things Considered
All Things Considered
All Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
, Charlie Rose
Charlie Rose
Charles Peete "Charlie" Rose, Jr. is an American television talk show host and journalist. Since 1991 he has hosted Charlie Rose, an interview show distributed nationally by PBS since 1993...
, The McLaughlin Group
The McLaughlin Group
The McLaughlin Group is a syndicated half-hour weekly public affairs television program in the United States, where a group of five pundits discuss current political issues in a round table format. It has been broadcast since 1982, and is currently sponsored by MetLife...
, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC
Dateline NBC, or Dateline, is a U.S. weekly television newsmagazine broadcast by NBC. It previously was NBC's flagship news magazine, but now focuses on true crime stories. It airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST and after football season on Sunday at 7 p.m. EST.-History:Dateline is historically notable for...
and the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
.
Much of Pollitt's writing is in defense of contemporary feminism and other forms of 'identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
' and tackles perceived misimpressions by critics from across the political spectrum; other frequent topics include abortion
Abortion
Abortion is defined as the termination of pregnancy by the removal or expulsion from the uterus of a fetus or embryo prior to viability. An abortion can occur spontaneously, in which case it is usually called a miscarriage, or it can be purposely induced...
, the media, U.S. foreign policy, the politics of poverty
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
(especially welfare reform
Welfare reform
Welfare reform refers to the process of reforming the framework of social security and welfare provisions, but what is considered reform is a matter of opinion. The term was used in the United States to support the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act...
), and human rights
Human rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
movements around the world. Her more controversial writings include "Not Just Bad Sex" (1993), a negative review of Katie Roiphe
Katie Roiphe
Katie Roiphe is an American author and journalist. She is best known as the author of the non-fiction examination The Morning After: Fear, Sex and Feminism . She is also the author of Last Night in Paradise: Sex and Morals at the Century's End , and the 2007 study of writers and marriage, Uncommon...
's The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism on Campus
The Morning After (book)
The Morning After: Sex, Fear and Feminism was the first of author and journalist Katie Roiphe's books. It was published simultaneously in the United States by Back Bay Books and in Canada by Little, Brown and Company in 1993. It was reprinted in 1994, while Roiphe was still a candidate for her...
, and "Put Out No Flags" (2001), a Nation essay on post-9/11 America in which she explained her refusal to fly an American flag
Flag of the United States
The national flag of the United States of America consists of thirteen equal horizontal stripes of red alternating with white, with a blue rectangle in the canton bearing fifty small, white, five-pointed stars arranged in nine offset horizontal rows of six stars alternating with rows...
out of her living room window.
In addition to her writing, Pollitt is a well-known public speaker and has lectured at dozens of colleges and universities, including Harvard, Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College
Brooklyn College is a senior college of the City University of New York, located in Brooklyn, New York, United States.Established in 1930 by the New York City Board of Higher Education, the College had its beginnings as the Downtown Brooklyn branches of Hunter College and the City College of New...
, UCLA, the University of Mississippi
University of Mississippi
The University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, is a public, coeducational research university located in Oxford, Mississippi. Founded in 1844, the school is composed of the main campus in Oxford, four branch campuses located in Booneville, Grenada, Tupelo, and Southaven as well as the...
and Cornell. She has taught poetry at Princeton
Princeton
-Princeton, New Jersey:*Borough of Princeton, New Jersey*Princeton Township, New Jersey*Princeton, New Jersey -Other places in New Jersey:*Princeton Junction, New Jersey*Princeton Meadows, New Jersey...
, Barnard
Barnard
- People :Some of the Barnard family are believed to have been Huguenots who fled from the Atlantic coast region of France to England, Ireland, Holland and the New World circa 1685 or earlier than that date. See,...
and the 92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y
92nd Street Y is a multifaceted cultural institution and community center located on the Upper East Side of Manhattan in New York City, United States, at the corner of E. 92nd Street and Lexington Avenue. Its full name is 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association...
, and women's studies at the New School University. Pollitt is the recipient of several prestigious awards, including the National Magazine Award
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
(1992, 2003), the American Book Award
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
"Lifetime Achievement Award" (2010), and the National Book Critics Circle Award
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
(1983). She has been awarded grants and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
Guggenheim Foundation
Guggenheim Foundation may refer to one of the following:*The Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation funds the Guggenheim Museums.*The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awards grants to scientists, scholars and artists....
, the National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
, and the Fulbright Program
Fulbright Program
The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright-Hays Program, is a program of competitive, merit-based grants for international educational exchange for students, scholars, teachers, professionals, scientists and artists, founded by United States Senator J. William Fulbright in 1946. Under the...
.
Pollitt earned a B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
in 1972 and an M.F.A.
Master of Fine Arts
A Master of Fine Arts is a graduate degree typically requiring 2–3 years of postgraduate study beyond the bachelor's degree , although the term of study will vary by country or by university. The MFA is usually awarded in visual arts, creative writing, filmmaking, dance, or theatre/performing arts...
in writing from Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
in 1975. She is currently working on a book about abortion politics.
Books
Pollitt is known equally as well for her poetry as her non-fiction. The New York Review of Books Cathleen SchineCathleen Schine
Cathleen Schine is an American author of several novels, including Rameau's Niece .Her first book was Alice in Bed , which was followed by To The Birdhouse , The Love Letter and The Evolution of Jane . The Love Letter was filmed in 1999...
describes Pollitt as "a good old-fashioned feminist and leftist columnist for The Nation, as well as a prize-winning poet." The process of navigating between the political and poetic has been the subject of many interviews, including a noteworthy conversation with Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik
Adam Gopnik, is an American writer, essayist and commentator. He is best known as a staff writer for The New Yorker—to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir and criticism—and as the author of the essay collection Paris to the Moon, an account of five years that Gopnik, his wife...
for Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
in 2009.
Essay Collections
In 1994, Pollitt published Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (VintageVintage Books
Vintage Books is a publishing imprint founded in 1954 by Alfred A. Knopf. Its publishing list includes world literature, fiction, and non-fiction...
), a collection of nineteen essays that first appeared in The Nation and other journals. The book's title was a reference to a line in Mary Wollstonecraft's
Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
1794 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: with Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects , written by the 18th-century British feminist Mary Wollstonecraft, is one of the earliest works of feminist philosophy. In it, Wollstonecraft responds to those educational and political theorists of the 18th...
– "I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures."
Most of her Nation essays from 1994 to 2001 were collected in Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics and Culture, published by the Modern Library
Modern Library
The Modern Library is a publishing company. Founded in 1917 by Albert Boni and Horace Liveright as an imprint of their publishing company Boni & Liveright, it was purchased in 1925 by Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer...
in 2001. Booklist
Booklist
Booklist is a publication of the American Library Association that provides critical reviews of books and audiovisual materials for all ages. It is geared toward libraries and booksellers and is available in print or online...
reviewed the book favorably in 2001:
"Readers of The Nation depend on their Pollitt fix to stay sane, eagerly reading her zestfully argued, blazingly commonsensical (what a shock good clear thinking can be), and morally precise columns. A master stylist as well as a passionate champion of social justice, Pollitt introduces this powerhouse collection of more than 80 essays spanning the years 1994 through mid-2000 with a bracing overview of the state of feminism and feminism's role in the state, observing that feminism is not a monolithic force, or "plot," but rather a growing resistance against misogyny and the status of second-class citizenry for women by both genders. Adept at picking out the hypocrisy from the rhetoric and intent on voicing sharp, lacerating truths about society, she never misses an opportunity for wit, and her range is extraordinary. Here are incisive and exhilarating essays on women at work, domestic violence, dead-beat dads, panhandlers, school prayer, same-sex marriage, Larry FlyntLarry FlyntLarry Claxton Flynt, Jr. is an American publisher and the president of Larry Flynt Publications . In 2003, Arena magazine listed him as the number one on the "50 Powerful People in Porn" list....
, and the movie Titanic as "romantic feminism." Every beautifully executed piece is a touchdown, and no silly dances follow."
On June 13, 2006, Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
published her book Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, a collection of 84 of her Nation columns. Publisher's Weekly called it, "invariably witty, astute and relentlessly logical...no conservative interested in public debate should ignore so formidable an opponent."
In 2007, Pollitt published Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories (Random House
Random House
Random House, Inc. is the largest general-interest trade book publisher in the world. It has been owned since 1998 by the German private media corporation Bertelsmann and has become the umbrella brand for Bertelsmann book publishing. Random House also has a movie production arm, Random House Films,...
), a collection of personal essays. Learning to Drive is a departure from her political commentary, covering a range of topics from webstalking a cheating boyfriend to what she learned about her parents using the Freedom of Information Act. The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books
The New York Review of Books is a fortnightly magazine with articles on literature, culture and current affairs. Published in New York City, it takes as its point of departure that the discussion of important books is itself an indispensable literary activity...
calls Learning to Drive, “A powerful personal narrative ... full of insight and charm ... Pollitt is her own Jane Austen
Jane Austen
Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...
character ... haughty and modest, moral and irresponsible, sensible and, happily for us, lost in sensibility.”
Poetry
The first book Pollitt published was a collection of poetry called Antarctic Traveler (Knopf, 1982), which received much critical acclaim, including the National Book Critics Circle AwardNational Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
(1983). Critics noted Pollitt's "...poise, her skillful use of language, mature ear for rhythm, and her intellectual and cerebral interpretations. Reviewers credit her with unusual maturity as a poet, praising her ability to contrast romance with disillusionment and her skill at maintaining an objective distance from her subjects."
Her second volume of poetry, The Mind-Body Problem, was published in 2009 and excerpted at Granta
Granta
Granta is a literary magazine and publisher in the United Kingdom whose mission centers on its "belief in the power and urgency of the story, both in fiction and non-fiction, and the story’s supreme ability to describe, illuminate and make real." In 2007, The Observer stated, "In its blend of...
. United States Poet Laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan
Kay Ryan is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. Ryan was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate, from 2008 to 2010...
wrote of The Mind-Body Problem, “It’s awfully good to have such a great-hearted poet as Katha Pollitt take on mortality’s darkest themes. Again and again she finds a human-sized crack of light and squeezes us through with her.”
Childhood
Pollitt was born into a half-Jewish, half-Protestant family in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Her father, Basil Pollitt, was a lawyer who championed liberal causes, and her mother, Leonora Levine, was a real estate agent. Her parents were prolific readers, and they encouraged their only daughter to pursue her interest in poetry.Pollitt wrote extensively of her family in Learning to Drive, which is dedicated to her parents. New York Times Sunday Book Reviewer Toni Bentley writes about the discoveries she made in adulthood about her parents:
"Her father, Basil Riddiford Pollitt, a lawyer, was a kind of real-life Communist Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch
Atticus Finch is a fictional character in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill a Mockingbird. Atticus is a lawyer and resident of the fictional Maycomb County, Alabama, and the father of Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch and Jean Louise "Scout" Finch. Atticus is a central character in the novel...
, complete with an F.B.I. file about “five inches thick.” People had been informing on him since his high school days, and he lost his scholarship to Harvard as a 17-year-old freshman for “ ‘making communistic speeches and engaging in communistic activities.’ ” As a lawyer he argued that “grand juries were unconstitutional because they systematically excluded blacks and women.” (Decades later, the Supreme Court finally agreed with him.) He sounds like a man who lived up to his wonderful name.
Pollitt’s mother, Leanora Levine Pollitt, was Jewish and also had an F.B.I. file, which revealed that she had had an illegal abortion and had protested against segregated restaurants and Nazi collaborators. She was beautiful and had received nine proposals before marrying Basil, played classical piano, could recite Heine
Heine
Heine is a German family name. The name comes from "Heinrich" or the Hebrew "Chayyim" . When mentioned without a first name it usually refers ti the poet Heinrich Heine...
in German, knew what President and Mrs. Roosevelt were doing at any moment of any day and had begun (though did not finish) law school. She had, Pollitt writes, her “dream self,” which included being a journalist and a “fiery revolutionary.” In a poignant legacy, the daughter has manifested the mother’s dream. Beautiful Leanora, however, drank herself to death by the age of 54."
Adult life
On June 6, 1987, she married Randy CohenRandy Cohen
Randy Cohen is an American Emmy Award-winning writer and humorist known as the author of The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine between 1999 and 2011. The column is syndicated throughout the U.S. and Canada.-Career:...
, author of the New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist." They later divorced. They have a daughter, Sophie Pollitt-Cohen (September 25, 1987), author of the bestselling book, The Notebook Girls, written while Pollitt-Cohen was a student at Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School
Stuyvesant High School , commonly referred to as Stuy , is a New York City public high school that specializes in mathematics and science. The school opened in 1904 on Manhattan's East Side and moved to a new building in Battery Park City in 1992. Stuyvesant is noted for its strong academic...
.
On April 29, 2006, Pollitt married the political theorist Steven Lukes
Steven Lukes
Steven Michael Lukes is a political and social theorist. Currently he is a professor of politics and sociology at New York University...
. They currently reside in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
.
Awards, Honors, Grants
The Frost Place
The Frost Place is a museum and nonprofit educational center for poetry located at Robert Frost's former home in Franconia, New Hampshire, USA....
poet in residence (1977)
National Book Critics Circle Award
The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....
in Poetry (for Antarctic Traveler, 1983)
National Endowment for the Arts
The National Endowment for the Arts is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created by an act of the U.S. Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government. Its current...
(grant, 1984)
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...
("Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award," 1984)
Arvon Foundation
The Arvon Foundation is a charitable organisation in the United Kingdom which promotes creative writing. It is based in the Free Word Centre for literature, literacy and free expression in London.-History:...
(1986)
New York Foundation for the Arts
The New York Foundation for the Arts was created in conjunction the in 1971. The organization gives grants to individual artists and writers and developing arts organizations with a mission to '.'-NYFA's Programs:...
(1987)
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation was founded in 1925 by Mr. and Mrs. Simon Guggenheim in memory of their son, who died April 26, 1922...
(Fellowship, 1987)
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
(for "Essays and Criticism," 1992)
Freedom From Religion Foundation
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the separation of church and state and to educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism. The FFRF publishes...
("Freethought Heroine Award," 1995)
National Women's Political Caucus
The National Women's Political Caucus is a national bipartisan grassroots organization in the United States dedicated to recruiting, training, and supporting women who seek elected and appointed offices....
("Exceptional Merit Media Award," 2001)
National Magazine Award
The National Magazine Awards are a series of US awards that honor excellence in the magazine industry. They are administered by the American Society of Magazine Editors and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in New York City...
(for "Best Columns and Commentary," 2003)
American Book Award
The American Book Award was established in 1978 by the Before Columbus Foundation. It seeks to recognize outstanding literary achievement by contemporary American authors, without restriction to race, sex, ethnic background, or genre...
("Lifetime Achievement Award," 2010)
Freedom From Religion Foundation
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is an American freethought organization based in Madison, Wisconsin. Its purposes, as stated in its bylaws, are to promote the separation of church and state and to educate the public on matters relating to atheism, agnosticism and nontheism. The FFRF publishes...
(Honorary Board of distinguished achievers 2010)
Criticism
Pollitt was criticized by Bernard GoldbergBernard Goldberg
Bernard Richard Goldberg , also known as Bernie Goldberg, is an eleven-time Emmy Award-winning American writer, journalist, and political commentator...
, who named her number 74 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America
100 People Who Are Screwing Up America is a non-fiction book by Bernard Goldberg that was published in 2005. The book's central idea is to name and blame a long list of specific individuals for making the United States a "far more selfish, vulgar, and cynical place."Goldberg's book denounces many...
, because of her essay "Put Out No Flags," in which she says: "The flag stands for jingoism
Jingoism
Jingoism is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as extreme patriotism in the form of aggressive foreign policy. In practice, it is a country's advocation of the use of threats or actual force against other countries in order to safeguard what it perceives as its national interests...
and vengeance and war." Goldberg criticized what he perceived to be her lack of patriotism
Patriotism
Patriotism is a devotion to one's country, excluding differences caused by the dependencies of the term's meaning upon context, geography and philosophy...
in the time shortly after the September 11th, 2001 attacks.
Pollitt's response, in the Introduction to Virginity or Death!, was "(Memo to self: must try harder.)"
Feminist author Camille Paglia described Pollitt as a "whiny troll, an unscrupulous and unreliable critic and a cultural philistine...She's a good example of the phony prep-school/trust-fund leftism suffusing the incestuously interwined Ivy League cliques who run the corrupt East Coast literary and magazine establishment."
External links
- Katha Pollitt official blog
- Column archive at The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Column archive at The NationThe NationThe Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
- Biography at Freedom from Religion Foundation
- Beyond the Politics of Irony and Lip Gloss: An Interview With Feminist Writer Katha Pollitt by Jessica Clark, LiP MagazineLiP magazineLiP: Informed Revolt was an award-winning alternative magazine that took on various incarnations after its founding in 1996 by former Britannica.com Books editor Brian Awehali...
: 2001. - "Strident" and Proud (July 12, 2006 interview of Pollitt by Jessica Valenti on salon.com)
- Exchange between Pollitt and Michael AlbertMichael AlbertMichael Albert is an American activist, economist, speaker, and writer. He is co-editor of ZNet, and co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine. He also co-founded South End Press and has written numerous books and articles...
of Z CommunicationsZ CommunicationsZ Communications is a radical left-wing media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent. It advocates participatory socialism as a replacement for capitalism. Its publications include Z Magazine, ZNet, Z Media, and Z Video.Z Communications is based outside Woods Hole, Massachusetts...