"I am making brazen strides towards meeting thrilling people that are alive," and in her youthful foray into that genre which she would make her own, young May Sarton recounts her successes---with beloved teachers, admired actresses such as Eva Le Gallienne, even opera singer Mary Garden. But destiny previews her future at an "enchanted" poetry reading by Edna St. Vincent Millay. "Oh, these ambitions!" young May laments, with adolescent charm, not knowing how those dreams foreshadowed her mature fulfillment.

124 pages; archival photographs
Puckerbrush Press, September 2002

"It is with a shock of recognition and familiarity that one encounters the origins, in this youthful May Sarton journal, of many ideas and motifs that she would later explore and expand in more mature works. With language at times grandiloquent but fresh in innocence and exuberance, Sarton begins to examine such themes as love, poetry and friendship. Through Susan Sherman’s deft editorial skills, we witness the growth and development of a young writer who, with self discipline and eagerness to experience the world around her, begins to formulate the core beliefs that would thread throughout her writing. It is especi ally startling to read that the solitude Sarton so earnestly sought in adulthood had been a quest even in her youth: "complete repose . . . that is surely an inner peace of mind, a basis to return to in trouble, . . . Someday I shall have such a basis.' "

––Lenora P. Blouin – author of May Sarton: A Bibliography, Second Edition, Scarecrow Press, 2000

"At Fifteen bursts with Sarton’s zest for living. Even as a teen-ager she was determined to pack as much into each day as possible. Her eagerness to explore. her energy and her astonishingly mature commentaries on love, beauty, and truth, are in every entry. We who are captivated by the mature Sarton’s reflections on planting tulips are equally enthralled by the teenager’s lament at homework yet undone. We share the dailyness as well as the drama of the young poet’s life."

––Nancy MacKnight – author of May Sarton entry in Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 5, 1976-2000, Harvard University Press.

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"I have included in this book everything I wrote during those years," May Sarton notes with trademark candor, "no matter how bad it is." But these earliest surviving evocations of her Muse are astonishingly good: from the empathy for the aged "Mrs. Bradford"---to her first attempts at the sonnet-form she so thoroughly mastered---to the philosophic intensity of "The very God within me is crying out!" In these 148 apprentice works young May does indeed display "sureness in catching beauty."

"The world must hear from your poems one day. I believe in them with all my heart---my dear! Don't hug them too long to yourself, for they are a most lovely gift you can make to all people."

---to May Sarton from Katharine Warren, chief actress with the Boston Repertory Theatre, 15 August 1928

180 pages; frontispiece
Puckerbrush Press, June 2002

"That she is a poet, first and foremost, cannot be denied after reading these astounding early poems by May Sarton, many written when she was only fifteen. In spite of occasional grandiose language, these poems contain glimpses of Sarton’s poetic genius as she examines such ideas as the complexity of love and friendship or the mysteries of poetry. Yet Sarton examines these ideas not with a scientific eye or a philosopher’s mind but with the inner spirit: ". . . I prefer to live! /I am no philosopher./ Rather am I a passionate lover." The trajectory of her life, from youth to old age, was that of the "passionate lover," not only for the muse but for poetry. "This is where poetry is so mysterious, the work more mature than the writer of it, always the messenger of growth. So perhaps we write toward what we will become from where we are."

--Lenora P. Blouin – author of May Sarton: A Bibliography, Second Edition, Scarecrow Press, 2000.

"Read Catching Beauty

to see the budding talent of the poet and to delight in her already dazzling accomplishments. Sarton’s teen-age eye is as acute as her mature one. And read Catching Beauty with its companion journal At Fifteen for an intimate portrait of Sarton’s girlhood and her reflections on it."

--Nancy MacKnight – author of May Sarton entry in Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary, Vol. 5, 1976-2000, Harvard University Press.

Later Sarton Letters Also Edited by Susan Sherman

The engrossing drama begun in May Sarton: Selected Letters 1916-1954 culminates in this gathering of 200 quintessential letters, culled from thousands. Copiously annotated, they propel the reader with passionate immediacy through the rich years of this beloved author's maturity and world-wide fame, to her death.

"Sarton is one of the great letter writers of our time," the Library Journalaffirmed of the first volume. And here once again we see her in every aspect: the hard-pressed writer, the tormented lover, at her fiercest and most fond; the friend, confidante and passionate traveler, intensely engaged by public issues, ceaselessly searching for the elusive muse which made poetry and the creative transformation of life possible.

In addition to longtime friends and intimates familiar from Volume One---Louise Bogan, Eva Le Gallienne, Bill Brown, Muriel Rukeyser and the Huxleys---the more than 150 recipients in this volume include Robert Frost and Elizabeth Bowen, Carolyn Heilbrun and Doris Grumbach, Madeleine L'Engle, Pat Carroll, and Marianne Moore.

"No topic escapes her," Susan Kenney wrote of the first volume, and in the breadth and amplitude of these vibrant missives to friends and strangers, poets and scientists, actors and scholars, teachers and editors from every corner of the States and throughout Europe, the reader will partake of her joys, and learn well her griefs; it is no coincidence she always capitalized Hell.Particularly rich are her letters to members of the religious community who were drawn to the spiritual center in her work; her magnificent letters of condolence; her fiery replies to critics; her trenchant, generous responses to the many young writers who touched her; and her life-enhancing responses to hordes of admirers.

Here, too, we are privy to several intense love relationships, and live beside her through the landmark publications of Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing and her revolutionary Journal of a Solitude. We accompany her as she writes the celebrated lyric poems which, with missionary fervor, she brought alive in dynamic readings to standing-room-only audiences across America, as long as she could do so. And finally we are witness to the gradual diminishments of age as, with characteristic courage, she charges into her ninth decade, "ardent and alone."

Selected Letters 1955-1995 offers new insights and throws fascinating sidelights on Sarton's multi-faceted character, presenting an awesome self-portrait---more revealing than anything yet published---of this singular woman who, faithful to her "vision of life"---and like the legendary phoenix which marks her grave---never ceased to be reborn over and over again.

As critic William Drake put it, "May Sarton always seems to be speaking to each one of us personally, as if we were a friend." In this richly moving and nourishing collection---the capstone of her literary legacy---this unforgettable woman speaks to each of us, as to each correspondent, once again in her timeless voice.

SUSAN SHERMAN, friend to May Sarton in her later years, has also edited May Sarton: Among the Usual Days; Selected Letters 1916-1954; and Dear Juliette: Letters of May Sarton to Juliette Huxley for Norton.

CRITICAL ACCLAIM:

"May Sarton's Selected Letters 1955-1995, meticulously edited by Susan Sherman, present a searingly honest self-portrait. Here are forty years from the life of the same intense, complex, and gifted woman one knows and cherishes from her journals. What a feast!"---Dr. Claire Douglas, author of Translate This Darkness: The Life of Christiana Morgan, The Veiled Woman in Jung's Circle (Princeton Univ. Press)

"Sarton's letters exhibit her uncanny ability to communicate those insights she calls 'felt truths.' They touch on her favorite subjects: the rhythm of the seasons; the mysteries and satisfactions of love and friendship; the challenges, despairs, and successes of the writer's life. This volume put me back in touch with her restless but rich spirit, her keen intelligence, her humanity." ---Eleanor Dwight, author of Edith Wharton: An Extraordinary Life (Abrams)

"These letters offer a rare glimpse into what Rilke called 'living the questions' of a creative life. Those who know her journals will find here a Sarton willing to examine the underside of creativity, refusing to stay stuck in life or work. This book passes on that courage to its readers."---Alexandra Johnson, author of Leaving a Trace: On Keeping a Journal (Little, Brown)

"In a century of inhumanity, 'life-enhancing' poet, novelist, and journal-keeper May Sarton showed us how to be human, as these thoughtful letters reveal. Her lifelong struggle toward peace and wholeness is, like our own, a spiritual journey. We find in her a friend, and will keep rereading her words for clues about the journey ahead."---Father John Dear, author of Living Peace (Doubleday)

"Exemplary annotations enhance our understanding of May's lifelong devotion to her broad circle of friends and to her art, in all its joy, variety, and generosity of spirit. I sincerely hope this will not be 'the final volume'; but if so, how resounding a finale as May Sarton's last gift to her readers."---Susan Kenney, author of Graves in Academe (Viking)

"In May Sarton: Selected Letters 1955-1995, Susan Sherman has created a true biography, a rich mosaic whose footnotes provide a context to reveal the many facets of the writer's life. Sarton's literary gift shines in this engrossing book."---Edith Royce Schade, photographer and compiler of From May Sarton's Well (Goodale Hill Press)

"In this second volume of deftly edited letters, Sarton's 'vision of life' comes into focus as never before, revealing a personality honed by pain, loneliness, and rage, juxtaposed with passion and reverence for all the people, places and things that became a part of May Sarton the Poet."---Lenora P. Blouin, author of May Sarton: A Bibliography, 2nd edition (Scarecrow Press)

"The reader is caught up as on a train-trip through the landscape of Sarton's friendships, loves, social concerns and travels, with revealing views of the human exchanges which fostered her artistic processes. Sherman's well-written annotations provide invaluable context and commentary for general readers and scholars alike."---Charlotte Mandel, poet, author of Sight Lines (Midmarch Arts Press)

"Sarton is one of the great letter writers of our time."
---Library Journal

"Through these judiciously edited letters we can hear again the inimitable voice of May Sarton---clear, strong, impeccably honest. Those who already know her works will take special pleasure in this book; those meeting her for the first time will be deeply grateful to Susan Sherman for this labor of love."
---George Garrett, author of Death of the Fox (Doubleday)