From Publishers Weekly
Thirty-five years ago, poet Norris (The Cloister Walk), the studious daughter of a schoolteacher and professional musician, left her sheltered upbringing in Honolulu Navy housing, ill-prepared for life at wildly liberal Bennington College. Though she fell into an incongruous lesbian relationship, and later, an affair with a married professor, her naivete earned her the nickname "the Virgin of Bennington." Landing a job at New York's Academy of American Poets after college, under the tutelage of arts administrator Betty Kray, alternately described as an "anchor," "mentor" and "friend" who "set a high standard by which I still measure myself," Norris attended poetry readings nearly every day for five years. Norris's first taste of literary success came in her early 20s with the publication of Falling Off. The polished, classy voice of professional reader and Brilliance Audio director Sandra Burr brings an immediacy and freshness to the snippets of poetry (by well- or lesser-known poets, including Norris herself) interspersed throughout the narrative. Less suited to the audio format are the long lists of poets attending functions, and lengthy excerpts from Kray's personal papers. Personal recollections of drug use, encounters with Halston, Keith Richards, Stanley Kunitz, Bob Dylan, Erica Jong, Patti Smith, James Wright not to mention her relationships with Warhol assistant Gerard Malanga and author Jim Carroll belie Norris's quiet, cerebral style and self-proclaimed gullibility, which she chalks up to the "wantonly innocent" zeitgeist. While autobiographical, Norris's memoir is also a tribute to poets and to Kray, whose 30 years of groundbreaking work on behalf of poets included a pilot program to bring poetry to public schoolchildren. Based on Riverhead hardcover (Forecasts Apr. 2). Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Fans of Norris will undoubtedly be attracted to this coming-of-age memoir that charts her personal and professional life from the tumultuous 1960s into the more staid 1970s. As a transplanted Midwesterner from the plains of South Dakota, Norris spends her academic years at Vermont's Bennington College, out of sync with her classmates. She samples drugs (mostly speed, with disastrous results) and enters into an affair with a married professor. These were typical activities for the time of which she writes, still the author herself maintains an innocence and vulnerability that follow her to New York, where she moves after graduation. She happens into a job at the Academy of American Poets (AAP), a new organization under the direction of Elizabeth Kray, whose tireless efforts brought new poets to prominence and made poetry accessible to the general public. Kray also served as a mentor and motivator for Norris's own efforts as a poet, which resulted in winning recognition and publication for her first book. Exposed to encounters with some of the most notable poets of that time Denise Levertov, Erica Jong, James Merrill, James Wright, Gerard Malanga Norris ultimately decides to return to her roots, forsaking the East Coast for the plains of the Midwest. Unlike her previous works, which are either more personal or spiritual, the greatest portion of this story deals with the work of Kray as director of the AAP. For those who hope for something revelatory concerning the author of The Cloister Walk, this book, read by Sandra Burr, will not provide much in the way of enlightenment. Recommended for larger public libraries. Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
It's a great title and, yes, Norris recreates college life in the '60s, but the bulk of this story takes place in New York, where the aspiring poet worked for Betty Kray at the Academy of American Poets. Part coming-of-age revelation and part tribute to Kray, this literate memoir is broken into non-chronological segments sometimes not well defined by Sandra Burr. The text provides few dynamics, so one can't expect fireworks in the reading, but Burr's voice is clear, and her tone earnest. It's almost as if Norris, who later wrote of monastic life, is getting this all off her chest. Burr brings out the author's spiritual side, as well as her near-veneration of Kray. This is a good look (or listen) at the poetry scene of the '70s. J.B.G. © AudioFile 2001, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Norris' subjects--the muted yet majestic Dakota landscape, her family history, the Benedictine monastic tradition, and the power of poetry--hardly seem the stuff of commercial success, yet each of her books has been a best-seller. She now continues her autobiographical journey by going back to the period that preceded the move to her grandparents' house, which was chronicled so memorably in Dakota: A Spiritual Geography (1992). She was a shy and well-behaved midwesterner in the mid-1960s, wholly unprepared for the sophistication and pretension of Vermont's famously bohemian Bennington College. A fledgling poet, she evinced a fastidiousness that earned her the nickname the "Virgin of Bennington," but it was a passionate affair with a married professor that induced her to move to New York City. There she had the extraordinary good fortune of finding a job at the newly established Academy of American Poets, then under the inspired direction of Elizabeth Kray. Of gracious and modest temperament, Kray was a visionary and tireless advocate who strived to make contemporary poetry accessible to everyone. She was also instrumental in helping Norris and many others become not only writers but also fully realized human beings. Norris now expresses her profound gratitude and admiration in a magnetic, poignant, often funny, and genuinely inspiring portrait of her mentor. She offers a frank chronicle of her young self, too, and snapshots of the creative synergy that brought her into contact with such disparate artists as W. H. Auden, Patti Smith, and James Merrill. Kray's abiding faith in people and the transcendence of language shine brightly as Norris entrances and enlightens her readers with supple insights into the elusive nature of goodness. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review

Memoirists seem a self-centered, brazen gang: They find no subject as interesting as their private thoughts, all of which they deem worthy of publication. But Kathleen Norris is different. Her memoir, which follows the style of her award-winning spiritual meditations, is a marvel of modesty and delicate detail. In it, Norris describes her early career as a poet and arts administrator in New York City. She does not hide her own thoughts, but she manages to relay them in broader terms, focusing on poets' lives in general and her friends' lives in particular. It's a beguiling piece of writing, at once frank and secret.

Norris's story begins at Bennington, a small, artsy college that once opened the minds and legs of countless young co-eds. Norris describes her attempts to fit in, along with the ill-fated love affairs that swept her, after college, into a literary life in New York's Academy of American Poets. Throughout her memoir, Norris admits to her emotional peccadilloes but refuses to rake over them in reflective agony. When she records the erosion of her first romance—an affair with a married, older poet—she simply describes her boss Betty Kray's reaction: "'Your first love affair is over,' she commented...She said that affairs with older poets had been the bane of young women who worked at the Academy, and that my situation was far less disastrous than some." Like the precise and grounded Betty Kray, Norris eschews wallowing. She focuses on the work that her experiences helped to create: her own poems and those of others at the Academy.

So, instead of sweaty self-pity, Norris offers us subtle anecdotes about poets and poetry of 1970s Manhattan. She finds some small anecdote about every writer around: W. H. Auden, James Merrill, Elizabeth Bishop, and Denise Levertov, to name a few. She also shares with us bits of poetry, either spoken or written, and helps us to understand how they grew. Here's Norris's account of her friend Jim Carroll, author of The Basketball Diaries: "I was absorbed in writing cerebral verse about angels, and Jim sought inspiration in drug-induced hallucinatory dreams and nods. We both believed enough in what Jim has called 'the poem within' to let it save us. And it led us back to the real world."

Norris's The Virgin of Bennington also leads back to the real world. It's a memoir for people who don't like memoirs: full of the outside world, of poetry, and of people.(Jesse Gale)

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Shy and sheltered as a young woman, Kathleen Norris wasn'tprepared for the sex, drugs, and bohemianism of Bennington College in the late 1960s-and when she moved to New York City after graduation, it was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire. In this chronicle, Norris remembers the education she received, both formal and fortuitous; the influence of her mentor Betty Kray, who shunned the spotlight while serving as a guiding force in the poetry world of the late 20th century; her encounters with such figures as James Merrill, Jim Carroll, Denise Levertov, Stanley Kunitz, Patti Smith, and Erica Jong; and her eventual decision to leave Manhattan for the less-crowded landscape she described so memorably in Dakota. This account of the making of a young writer will resonate with anyone who has stumbled bravely into a bigger world and found the poetry that lurks on rooftops and in railroad apartments-and with anyone who has enjoyed the blessings of inspiring teachers and great friends.

Author Biography: Kathleen Norris is the author of Dakota, The Cloister Walk, and Amazing Grace, and an award-winning poet whose newest collection is Journey.

FROM THE CRITICS

Rocky Mountain News

a must-read...

Newsday

As Norris shares the lessons she learned in her younger years...she offers valuable, practical advice on the art of writing.

Publishers Weekly

In this absorbing coming-of-age memoir by the author of Dakota: A Spiritual Geography and Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, Norris appeals to every reader's struggle to achieve adulthood, both personally and professionally. She tells of her own transformation via the New York art world of the 1960s and 1970s from a homesick first-year college student to a well-known poet and writer living in South Dakota with a strong sense of literary mission. Like many of her Bennington classmates, Norris moved after college to New York City, where she felt much like "Nick Carraway [adapting]... to the dazzling but dangerous world of the East Coast." Norris landed a job as an assistant to Elizabeth Kray at the Academy of American Poets the center of the poetry world which provided her "an opportunity to attend poetry readings, night after night, for close to five years." While in New York, Norris came into contact with an entire host of famous figures, from the decadent folks at Warhol's Factory to some of the most highly respected poets of the day, like Denise Levertov, Stanley Kunitz and James Wright. While gaining an education in urbanity and sophistication that might have made another soul more cynical and self-destructive, Norris managed to maintain a certain appealing innocence and optimism, evident in her receptivity to new experiences and new people, and her hesitancy to judge others. This inner strength leads her eventually to sever her dependency on Manhattan. Norris writes with warmth, frankness and amazing vividness about formative moments and events in her life, many of which readers especially those with artistic aspirations will be able to identify with and to learn from. (Apr.) Forecast: The strong sales of Norris's earlier books pave the way for this memoir, which should sell handsomely. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

Fans of Norris will undoubtedly be attracted to this coming-of-age memoir that charts her personal and professional life from the tumultuous 1960s into the more staid 1970s. As a transplanted Midwesterner from the plains of South Dakota, Norris spends her academic years at Vermont's Bennington College, out of sync with her classmates. She samples drugs (mostly speed, with disastrous results) and enters into an affair with a married professor. These were typical activities for the time of which she writes, still the author herself maintains an innocence and vulnerability that follow her to New York, where she moves after graduation. She happens into a job at the Academy of American Poets (AAP), a new organization under the direction of Elizabeth Kray, whose tireless efforts brought new poets to prominence and made poetry accessible to the general public. Kray also served as a mentor and motivator for Norris's own efforts as a poet, which resulted in winning recognition and publication for her first book. Exposed to encounters with some of the most notable poets of that time Denise Levertov, Erica Jong, James Merrill, James Wright, Gerard Malanga Norris ultimately decides to return to her roots, forsaking the East Coast for the plains of the Midwest. Unlike her previous works, which are either more personal or spiritual, the greatest portion of this story deals with the work of Kray as director of the AAP. For those who hope for something revelatory concerning the author of The Cloister Walk, this book, read by Sandra Burr, will not provide much in the way of enlightenment. Recommended for larger public libraries. Gloria Maxwell, Penn Valley Community Coll., Kansas City, MO Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

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