Biography

Howard Gordon Hanson was born in Colorado, Texas, in late 1931, the first child of an Episcopal minister; but because of a sick younger brother she was raised mainly by her artist grandmother.

She was taught to read at age three, and by four was allowed to paint in oils; by ten she was writing in blank verse, trying to catch up with her father, who was also a poet. At five she began piano lessons at her mother’s insistence. So she got an early start in the arts and in reading.

In time she earned a BA in science and a PhD in Comparative Literature, and began her teaching career; but this direction lasted only ten years because of developing post-polio syndrome. Subsequently, with her partner, Dianne Mize, she founded an art school for adults, from which she retired in 2007.

Throughout these years she wrote poetry, and this book, taken along with her two earlier book publications, represents a life living and perceiving the world as she sees it.