LAurel Ann bogen: Autobiography
INSPIRATION
Not much is known of Laurel Ann Bogen’s life prior to her college years. However, that is mainly attributed to the start of her career as a poet in 1967 when she was a freshmen in college (Bibliobuffet) Bogen began writing poetry at the University of Southern California, and by the end of her freshmen year she had won her first award from the American Academy of Poets College Prize (Highbrow Magazine) In several interviews she mentions her aspiration to be like Joni Mitchell who is known as a singer/songwriter and painter. Bogen mentions that she would listen to music and try to emanate the way the lyrics flowed, which is characteristic of spoken word. From there she spent some time in London as an exchange student enjoying the poetry and performances in the community.
WORKING WHILE WRITING
In the 1970’s and 1980’s she began working for the Company Theater in Los Angeles sewing costumes, building sets, running the box office, and writing plays. From there she co-founded her own theater in 1978, known as the Los Angeles Poetry Theater. Throughout her life, while working as a struggling poet, she took a lot of odd jobs in order to make ends meet, such selling greeting cards, working at the William Morris Agency, working at the Farmer’s Market and the Herald-Examiner newspaper before she started her own jewelry-making business (Bibliobuffet).
LACMA
During the period of 1996-2002 she accomplished a great deal, first off by working as a literary curator for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where she coordinated a new program called the Writer’s in Focus poetry series (Highbrow Magazine). This led her to co-author a grant for young scholars to create a writer in residence program (Laurel Ann Bogen.com)
NEARLY FATAL WOMEN
Bogen also co-founded a poetry performance troupe known as Nearly Fatal Women with two colleagues Suzanne Lummis and Linda Albertano (Bibliobuffet)
WORKS
As an author and poet, she published a total of 10 books of poetry and short fiction, from titles such as the one that is the focus of this project titled The Burning, to several other titles such as, The Last Girl in the Land of the Butterflies, Washing a Language Fission, and Do Iguanas Dance Under the Moonlight?. In fact, she is due to be published yet again in 2016 by Red Hen Press with an anthology of all her works from 1975-2015. Not only has she written beautiful masterpieces, but she has also performed them for many audiences at locations such as, Cornell University, The DA Center for the Arts, and The Knitting Factory (Laurel Ann Bogen.com). in addition to being featured in several magazines, newspapers, and anthologies, such as the LA Times.
RECOGNITION
Her work has won her great recognition as she has won two awards from the Academy of American Poets, as well as the Curtis Zahn Poetry Prize from the Pacificus Foundation (Unlikely Stories).
NOW
In her own words, Bogen said she went back to graduate school after 30 years because she said “it felt like all the jobs had dried up” (Bibliobuffet). From there she went on to receive her current employment position at Whittier College teaching poetry, literature, and composition (Unlikely Stories).
When speaking of her poetry we realize that Bogen suffered from a mental illness, as she states that poetry saved her life, “Poetry saved my life. I’ve suffered from mental illness and find that reading, writing and performing poetry allows a focus for a mind that is rife with conflicting thoughts. I also teach poetry to patients at a mental health facility here in Los Angeles.” (Highbrow Magazine). In order to write her poetry she uses a technique, “I just know that I let my mind go blank and try to see what image comes up and where it takes me” (Bibliobuffet). She lets her words in her poetry flow the way the images cascade in her mind, making her poetry fairly unstructured and free.
When speaking of her poetry we realize that Bogen suffered from a mental illness, as she states that poetry saved her life, “Poetry saved my life. I’ve suffered from mental illness and find that reading, writing and performing poetry allows a focus for a mind that is rife with conflicting thoughts. I also teach poetry to patients at a mental health facility here in Los Angeles.” (Highbrow Magazine). In order to write her poetry she uses a technique, “I just know that I let my mind go blank and try to see what image comes up and where it takes me” (Bibliobuffet). She lets her words in her poetry flow the way the images cascade in her mind, making her poetry fairly unstructured and free.