Alison Townsend


Alison Townsend is an American poet.

Life

She grew up in New York. She teaches at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater.
Her work has appeared in Calyx, Clackamas Literary Review, Fourth Genre, New Letters, The North American Review, and The Southern Review.
She is married and lives outside Madison, Wisconsin.

Awards

The dilemma with this book is that every time I start to read it, I find myself putting it down to write—my own memories surfacing, requiring the light of paper to see. C.K. Williams says of memory in his poem “Lessons” from The Singing, “How even know in truth how much / of mind should be memory, no less / what portion of self should be others / rather than self?” Are our own truths, our own selves defined by our memories?

Persephone in America is the latest book of poetry from Alison Townsend. It follows 2003’s The Blue Dress with more strong work that delves into the stressful state of womanhood and femininity in the United States today. It is beautiful poetry, but it is not a pleasant picture.