About ”The Lightning Field”, Frieda Gardner wrote in ”[http://www.wcwonline.org/Women-s-Review-of-Books/womens-review-of-books The Women’s Review of Books]”, “[Moldaw] courts revelation . . . in a voice variously curious, passionate, surprised, meditative, and sensual. On the surface of her work are rich sounds and varitations of rhythm and line. A few steps deeper in lie wells of feeling and complexities of thought.” A review in ”[[The New Yorker]]” of ”Chalkmarks on Stone” noted her work “repeatedly achieves lyric junctures of shivering beauty,” calling Moldaw’s poems “oblique, wily, and intensely intelligent.” [[Dennis Nurkse|D. Nurkse]] called Moldaw “a treasured poet, a master of lyric intensity,” observing her work as “a fascinating act of exploration.” “Here are poems of intelligent consideration and a deft and heart-born music,” wrote acclaimed poet [[Jane Hirshfield]], “filled with the gleam of particularity and a lushness of language and substance.”
About ”The Lightning Field”, Frieda Gardner wrote in ”[http://www.wcwonline.org/Women-s-Review-of-Books/womens-review-of-books The Women’s Review of Books]”, “[Moldaw] courts revelation . . . in a voice variously curious, passionate, surprised, meditative, and sensual. On the surface of her work are rich sounds and varitations of rhythm and line. A few steps deeper in lie wells of feeling and complexities of thought.” A review in ”[[The New Yorker]]” of ”Chalkmarks on Stone” noted her work “repeatedly achieves lyric junctures of shivering beauty,” calling Moldaw’s poems “oblique, wily, and intensely intelligent.” [[Dennis Nurkse|D. Nurkse]] called Moldaw “a treasured poet, a master of lyric intensity,” observing her work as “a fascinating act of exploration.” “Here are poems of intelligent consideration and a deft and heart-born music,” wrote acclaimed poet [[Jane Hirshfield]], “filled with the gleam of particularity and a lushness of language and substance.”
Moldaw’s prose has also been published in numerous journals and magazines including [http://www.bu.edu/agni/ ”AGNI”], ”[[The Antioch Review]]”, ”[[Boston Review|The Boston Review]], ”Conjunctions”, [[The Massachusetts Review]], ”[[Partisan Review]] and ”Plume”. Her poems have been anthologized in ”Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (”McGraw-Hill), ”A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker 1925–2025” (Knopf), ”Pushcart Prize XLVI: Best of the Small Presses” and ”Under 35: A New Generation of American Poets” (Anchor), and her work has been translated into Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish.
Moldaw’s prose has also been published in numerous journals and magazines including [http://www.bu.edu/agni/ ”AGNI”], ”[[The Antioch Review]]”, ”[[Boston Review|The Boston Review]], ”Conjunctions”, [[The Massachusetts Review]], ”[[Partisan Review]] and ”Plume”. Her poems have been anthologized in ”Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (”McGraw-Hill), ”A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker 1925–2025” (Knopf), ”Pushcart Prize XLVI: Best of the Small Presses” and ”Under 35: A New Generation of American Poets” (Anchor), and her work has been translated into Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish.
Moldaw is the recipient of several literary distinctions including an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a [[Pushcart Prize]], a [[Lannan Foundation]] Marfa Writer’s Residency and a Merwin Conservancy Artist Residency.
Moldaw is the recipient of several literary distinctions including an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a [[Pushcart Prize]], a [[Lannan Foundation]] Marfa Writer’s Residency and a Merwin Conservancy Artist Residency.
American poet, novelist and critic (born 1956)
Carol Moldaw (born 1956) is an American poet, novelist and critic. Her book The Lightning Field won the FIELD Poetry Prize.
Biography
Carol Moldaw was born in Oakland, California and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. Moldaw holds an A.B. from Harvard University and an M.A. from Boston University.
Noted for their deep intelligence and lushness of language, Moldaw’s poems have been published widely. Her work has appeared in The Academy of American Poets, AGNI, American Poetry Review, Georgia Review, Harvard Review, Kenyon Review, The New Republic, The New Yorker, The Paris Review, Parnassus, Poem-A-Day, Poetry, The Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly, Virginia Quarterly Review and The Yale Review.
Jesse Nathan, in “Short Conversations with Poets” in McSweeney’s, wrote about Go Figure: “The fierceness of the love in these poems, and the lithe music of it, is part of what makes them powerful . . . And the strange beauty of these poems is in the ease of the forms . . .” In her review in Asheville Poetry Review (2024), Suzanne Cleary writes, “In a voice both graceful and searing, Moldaw continues to explore the interior world and the global, especially in regard to women.”
About The Lightning Field, Frieda Gardner wrote in The Women’s Review of Books, “[Moldaw] courts revelation . . . in a voice variously curious, passionate, surprised, meditative, and sensual. On the surface of her work are rich sounds and varitations of rhythm and line. A few steps deeper in lie wells of feeling and complexities of thought.” A review in The New Yorker of Chalkmarks on Stone noted her work “repeatedly achieves lyric junctures of shivering beauty,” calling Moldaw’s poems “oblique, wily, and intensely intelligent.” D. Nurkse called Moldaw “a treasured poet, a master of lyric intensity,” observing her work as “a fascinating act of exploration.” “Here are poems of intelligent consideration and a deft and heart-born music,” wrote acclaimed poet Jane Hirshfield, “filled with the gleam of particularity and a lushness of language and substance.”
Moldaw’s prose has also been published in numerous journals and magazines including AGNI, The Antioch Review, The Boston Review, Conjunctions, The Massachusetts Review, Partisan Review and Plume. Her poems have been anthologized in Western Wind: An Introduction to Poetry (McGraw-Hill), A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker 1925–2025 (Knopf), Pushcart Prize XLVI: Best of the Small Presses and Under 35: A New Generation of American Poets (Anchor), and her work has been translated into Chinese, Italian, Portuguese and Turkish.
Moldaw is the recipient of several literary distinctions including an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a Pushcart Prize, a Lannan Foundation Marfa Writer’s Residency and a Merwin Conservancy Artist Residency.
While never a full-time academic, Moldaw has taught creative writing in a number of programs across the US, including the Stonecoast MFA Program in Creative Writing and the creative writing program at the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design). She was a Visiting Writer at Bucknell University‘s Stadler Center for Poetry and the Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Writer-in-Residence at Hollins University. Moldaw has taught workshops at the Taos Summer Writers’ Conference, Vermont Studio Center and Naropa University.
She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband, Arthur Sze.
Books
Poetry
- Moldaw, Carol (2024). Go Figure. New York, NY: Four Way Books. ISBN 978-1961897045.
- Moldaw, Carol (2018). Beauty Refracted. New York, NY: Four Way Books. ISBN 978-1945588075.
- Moldaw, Carol (2010). So Late, So Soon: New and Selected Poems. Wilkes-Barre, PA: Etruscan Press. ISBN 978-0981968728.
- Moldaw, Carol (2003). The Lightning Field. Oberlin, OH: Oberlin College Press. ISBN 978-0932440945.
- Moldaw, Carol (2001). Through the Window. Albuquerque, NM: La Alameda Press. ISBN 978-1888809305.
- Moldaw, Carol (1998). Chalkmarks on Stone. Albuquerque, NM: La Alameda Press. ISBN 978-1888809077.
- Moldaw, Carol (1993). Taken from the River. New York, NY: Alef Books. ISBN 978-1882509003.
Fiction
Honors and awards
- The Merwin Conservancy, Artist-in-Residence, 2022.
- Lannan Foundation Marfa Writers Residency, 2006.
- The FIELD Poetry Prize, 2002.
- Pushcart Poetry Prize, 2002.
- National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship in Poetry, 1994.
References
External links
Website
Articles and Interviews
- “Short Conversations with Poets: Carol Moldaw” by Jesse Nathan, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, January 7, 2025
- “Carol Moldaw: Interviewed by Olivia Burnett,” Subtropics
- “Then. And Since Then” by Jon Davis, Santa Fe Reporter, April 15, 2014
- “Bad Girls: An Interview with Carol Moldaw and Abigail DeWitt,” VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, January 9, 2013
- “An Interview With Carol Moldaw,” Sou’wester Magazine, Spring 2009
- “Carol Moldaw reads Gjertrud Schnackenberg,” Lemon Hound, October 17, 2008
- “‘The Impersonal Intimate’: A Conversation with Carol Moldaw,” interviewed by Tyler Mills, May 12, 2000
- “Beauty Refracted by Carol Moldaw,” reviewed by Irina Moga in Split Rock Review’s Shoreline
- Smith, Tracey, “For a Lost Fragment,” The Slowdown
- Spaar, Lisa Russ,“Monday’s Poem: ‘A Leaf’s Gravity,’ by Carol Moldaw,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, November 20, 2011
