Lynn
Strongin | Biography
Lynn Strongin
was born in New York City in 1939. Her father Edward I. Strongin was a
research psychologist, and her mother Marguerite (née Rosenblum)
was an artist who studied with Alexander Archipenko. Strongin's younger sister,
Martha Strongin Katz, was the founding violist of the Cleveland Quartet.
During the
war years, Strongin’s father, then a psychologist working with injured
and shell-shocked soldiers, was posted to numerous locations around the
Eastern and Southern States. Strongin’s mother, sister, and she lived in
cities, isolated hamlets, on small hardscrabble farms— wherever would keep
them close to her father.
Her family’s
travels through the South, when most establishments and neighbourhoods
prided themselves on their “no negroes, no Jews” policy, affected her deeply,
and explorations of those experiences are found throughout her work.
Strongin’s
parents divorced in 1949. In the summer of 1951, Strongin contracted polio
at the age of twelve. After a brief stay in a New York hospital, she was
moved to the New York State Rehabilitation Center at Haverstraw, New York,
where she stayed in the children’s ward for six months.
Upon her
return home, her mother moved the family into an apartment in Manhattan.
There, Strongin continued her schooling through the city’s home-schooling
program. She also studied piano while her sister studied the violin.
After graduating
from high school, Strongin first studied composition with Vittorio Giannini
at the Manhattan School of Music. When she found that music alone would
not provide the expressive forms her creativity demanded, she transferred
to Hunter College to study literature.
She graduated
from Hunter cum laude in 1962, and, having won a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship,
went to Stanford University where she obtained an M.A. in 1964.
After graduating
from Stanford, Strongin taught at various post-secondary institutions in
New York State and California. It was when she was teaching in the Berkeley/Oakland
area, that she connected with writers such as Denise Levertov, Robert Duncan,
Kay Boyle, Paul Mariah, and Josephine Miles.
In 1971,
Strongin moved to Albuquerque to start her Doctoral studies at the University
of New Mexico. In the same year, she received a National Endowment of the
Arts (NEA) Creative Writing grant; her first book, The Dwarf Cycle,
was published the next year.
From 1971
to 1979, Strongin lived, studied, and taught in Albuquerque. Her studies
in 1977-78 were supported by an American Association of University Women
(AAUW) Fellowship.
During her
time in Albuquerque, her other six poetry books were published. The last
book, Countrywoman/ Surgeon, was a candidate for the 1979 Elliston
Award.
In 1979,
Strongin moved to Canada for what was intended to be a short stay. She
remained, and now lives in her adopted land, British Columbia, Canada.
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