Beth Singer Bentley (October 7, 1921 – February 11, 2021) was an American poet. She was born in

St. Paul, Minnesota Saint Paul (abbreviated St. Paul) is the capital of the U.S. state of Minnesota and the county seat of Ramsey County. Situated on high bluffs overlooking a bend in the Mississippi River, Saint Paul is a regional business hub and the center ...

and received her BA and MFA in creative writing and English from the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

, where her fiction won the Hopwood Award while still a graduate student. She settled in Seattle and was married to poet

Nelson Bentley Nelson Bentley (1918–1990) was an American poet and professor at the University of Washington in Seattle. He was born in Elm, Michigan. He graduated from the University of Michigan, receiving his bachelor's and then his master's degree from tha ...

, a professor at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...

, from 1952 until his death in 1990.

Life

Her poems appeared in a number of magazines and journals including ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'', and ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Phi ...

''. She published two full-length collections of poems, both with

Ohio University Press Ohio University Press (OUP), founded in 1947, is the oldest and largest scholarly press in the state of Ohio. It is a department of Ohio University Ohio University is a public research university in Athens, Ohio. The first university char ...

: ''Phone Calls From the Dead'' in 1970 and ''Country of Resemblances'' in 1976. She also published several chapbooks and edited a selection of the poetry of Hazel Hall. Her poem ''Northern Idylls'' was included in ''

The Best American Poetry 1989 ''The Best American Poetry 1989'', a volume in ''The Best American Poetry series'', was edited by David Lehman and by guest editor Donald Hall. One of the poems Hall selected for this edition was written by his wife,Mercer Island Mercer Island is a city in King County, Washington, United States, located on an island of the same name in the southern portion of Lake Washington. Mercer Island is in the Seattle metropolitan area, with Seattle to its west and Bellevue to ...

the age of 99.

Selected publications

According to her obituary,

Beth's work has been widely published in dozens of journals and anthologies, including ''
The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...
'', Poetry, ''
The Atlantic ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...
'', ''
Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Ph ...
'', ''
Poetry Northwest ''Poetry Northwest'' was founded as a quarterly, poetry-only journal in 1959 by Errol Pritchard, with Carolyn Kizer, Richard Hugo, Edith Shiffert and Nelson Bentley as co-editors. The first issue was 32 pages and included the work of Richmond La ...
'', ''
The Nation ''The Nation'' is an American liberal biweekly magazine that covers political and cultural news, opinion, and analysis. It was founded on July 6, 1865, as a successor to William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator'', an abolitionist newspaper tha ...
'', ''Saturday Review'', ''
Seattle Review ''The Seattle Review'' is a leading literary journal founded in 1977 by Donna Gerstenberger and Nelson Bentley.Poetic License, The Seattle Times, March 10, 1991 It is based at the University of Washington. Work that has previously appeared in th ...
'', and '' Fine Madness''. Her collections include: ''Little Fires'' (1998); ''The Purely Visible'' (1980); ''Philosophical Investigations'' (1977); ''Country of Resemblances'' (1976); ''Field of Snow'' (1973); and ''Phone Calls from the Dead'' (1972). Beth also selected and edited The Selected Poems of Hazel Hall (1980).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bentley, Beth 1921 births 2021 deaths 20th-century American poets 20th-century American women writers American women poets Writers from Saint Paul, Minnesota University of Michigan alumni 21st-century American women