Julie Madison Suk ( Gaillard; March 18, 1924 – October 9, 2025) was an American poet and writer from Charlotte, North Carolina. She is the author of six volumes of poetry - The Medicine Woman (St. Andrews Press, 1980), Heartwood (Briarpatch Press, 1991), The Angel of Obsession (The University of Arkansas Press, 1992), The Dark Takes Aim (Autumn House Press, 2003), Lie Down With Me (Autumn House Press, 2011), and Astonished To Wake (Jacar Press, 2016), and co-editor of Bear Crossings: an Anthology of North American Poets. She is included in The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry.The Autumn House Anthology of Contemporary American Poetry, Pittsburgh, PA: Autumn House Press, 2011, Her poems have appeared in many literary journals including The Georgia Review, Great River Review, The Laurel Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, Shenandoah, and TriQuarterly.Autumn House Press: Lie Down With Me: New and Selected Poems by Julie Suk, About the Author
Life and career Suk was born and raised in Mobile, Alabama, on March 18, 1924. She attended Stephens College and the University of Alabama.The Academy of American Poets: Julie Suk In 1944 she married naval officer William Joseph Suk, who later founded the Charlotte engineering services company Polytech Services, Inc. shortly after the couple and their three children Julie, Bill, and Palmer moved from Shaker Heights, Ohio to Charlotte in 1966. For many years she was an artist, painting landscapes in oils. It was not until the 1960s that Suk took up poetry, inspired in part by the work of French poet Saint-John Perse. She lived in Charlotte from 1966.The Charlotte Observer: The poet next door, by Pam Kelley, January 8, 2012 She died on October 9, 2025, at the age of 101.
Awards In 2004 Julie Suk received the Irene Blair Honeycutt Lifetime Achievement Award from Central Piedmont Community CollegeJohnson C. Smith University: Irene Blair Honeycutt Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Literary Arts The Dark Takes Aim won the 2003 North Carolina Poetry Society’s Brockman-Campbell Book AwardNorth Carolina Poetry Society—Brockman-Campbell Book Award and The Oscar Arnold Young Award from The Poetry Council of North Carolina.Oscar Arnold Young Contest for Book – First Place, Bay Leaves, number thirty, 2004, p. 10 Julie Suk was awarded the 1993 Bess Hokin Prize from Poetry magazine.Poetry Magazine Prizes: Past Winners The Angel of Obsession won the 1992 Arkansas Poetry Award and the Roanoke-Chowan Poetry Award.North Carolina Literary and Historical Association: Roanoke-Chowan Award for Poetry
Works
Poetry collections
Astonished To Wake: Poems. Jacar Press, Durham NC. 2016.
In anthologies
References
External links Charlotte Observer: The Reading Life, More poems from Julie Suk, January 5, 2012