Carol Muske-Dukes (born 1945 in Saint Paul, Minnesota) is an American poet, novelist, essayist, critic, and professor, and the former poet laureate of California (2008–2011). Her most recent book of poetry, Sparrow (Random House, 2003), chronicling the love and loss of Muske-Dukes’ late husband, actor David Dukes, was a National Book Award finalist.
Life Muske-Dukes grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota. She received B.A. English from Creighton University in 1967, and her M.A. in 1970 from San Francisco State University. She has taught in the graduate writing programs at Columbia University, the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Virginia. She is one of the founding members of the USC PhD in Creative Writing & Literature, where she currently teaches.
She has a daughter, who graduated from USC in May 2005, and she is the widow of actor David Dukes, who died in 2000.
In addition to her seven books of poetry, she has published four novels, the most recent of which, Channeling Mark Twain (2007), is about a woman poet who teaches poetry at a women's detention facility, just as the author herself did and the perspectives she gains from the poetry her students write.Kaminski, Margot, 2007 "Prison Poets Give Teacher New Outlook", San Francisco Chronicle, July 15, pp. M1-2. Her work has appeared in Antaeus, Ploughshares, Paris Review, and The New Yorker.
Awards 1979 Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award of the Poetry Society of America 1981 Guggenheim Fellowship 1999 Witter Bynner Fellowship National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry Ingram Merrill grant
Published works Poetry collections
Twin Cities. Penguin Books. May 31, 2011 Blue Rose. Penguin Books. April 3, 2018
Collaborative works
Novels
Essay collections
Women & Poetry: Truth, Autobiography, and the Shape of the Self (University of Michigan Press, 1997)
Anthologies
References
Sources Library of Congress Online Catalog : Carol Muske-Dukes National Book Foundation : 2003 National Book Award Finalist: Poetry : Carol Muske-Dukes
External links Author Website Poetry Foundation : Carol Muske-Dukes Random House : Author Page : Carol Muske-Dukes Audio: NPR Fresh Air : Interview: Carol Muske-Dukes, Channeling Mark Twain Audio: Bookworm : Michael Silverblatt Interviews Carol-Muske-Dukes About Channeling Mark Twain : Dec. 20, 2007 Good Golly A Review by Carol Muske-Dukes in The New York Times Sunday Book Review : of The House on the Boulevard St. By David Kirby : April 29, 2007