Katha Pollitt (born October 14, 1949) is an American poet, essayist and critic. She is the author of four essay collections and two books of poetry. Her writing focuses on political and social issues from a left-leaning perspective, including abortion, racism, welfare reform, feminism, and poverty.
Early life and education
Pollitt was born in
Brooklyn Heights, New York. Her father was a lawyer and her mother was an agent involved in real estate.
Her parents encouraged Pollitt to pursue her interest in poetry. Her father was
Protestant and her mother was
Jewish.
Pollitt wrote extensively of her family in
Learning to Drive, which is dedicated to her parents.
Pollitt earned a B.A. in philosophy from Radcliffe College in 1972 and an M.F.A. in writing from Columbia University in 1975.
Professional life
Pollitt is best known for her bimonthly column "Subject to Debate" in
The Nation magazine. Her writing has also featured in publications such as
Ms.,
The New York Times, and the
London Review of Books. Her poetry has been republished in many anthologies and magazines, including
The New Yorker and the 2006
Oxford Book of American Poetry. She has appeared on
NPR's
Fresh Air and
All Things Considered,
Charlie Rose, The McLaughlin Group,
CNN,
Dateline NBC and the
BBC.
Much of Pollitt's writing is in defense of contemporary feminism and other forms of identity politics and tackles perceived misimpressions by critics from across the political spectrum; other frequent topics include abortion, the media, U.S. foreign policy, the politics of poverty (especially welfare reform), and human rights movements around the world.
Pollitt coined the phrase "The Smurfette Principle" in 1991,
In 2003, she was one of the signers of the Humanist Manifesto.
On May 20, 2020, Pollitt said she would vote for Joe Biden in the presidential election, even "if he boiled babies and ate them".
Publications
Essay collections
In 1994, Pollitt published
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (
Vintage Books), a collection of nineteen essays that first appeared in
The Nation and other journals. The book's title was a reference to a line in Mary Wollstonecraft's 1794 treatise,
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman – "I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures."
Most of her Nation essays from 1994 to 2001 were collected in Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics and Culture, published by the Modern Library in 2001.
On June 13, 2006, Random House published her book Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time, a further collection of her Nation columns.
In 2007, Pollitt published Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories (Random House), a collection of personal essays. Learning to Drive is a departure from her political commentary, covering a range of topics from webstalking a cheating boyfriend to what she learned about her parents using the Freedom of Information Act.
Learning to Drive was adapted by screenwriter Sarah Kernochan and director Isabel Coixet into the 2014 film Learning to Drive, which stars Patricia Clarkson.[ "Patricia Clarkson as Katha Pollitt in Isabel Coixet's Learning to Drive" . Indiewire, August 21, 2013.]
Poetry
The first book Pollitt published was a collection of poetry called
Antarctic Traveler (Knopf, 1982), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award (1983).
Her second volume of poetry, The Mind-Body Problem, was published in 2009 and excerpted at Granta.
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights
Politt has said that
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (2014), was intended as a response to the "feeling among many pro-choice people that we need to be more assertive, less defensive".
While the topic is always in debate, Pollitt posits that it needs to be discussed in a way that recognizes abortion as an integral component of women's reproductive lives. Her argument is built upon the notion that abortion is a "positive
common good" and "an essential option for women".
Pollitt says abortion needs to be looked at as "back into the lives and bodies of women, but also in the lives of men, and families, and the children those women already have or will have".
She argues that the issue brings about how we discuss
with young girls and the number of resources we have available for families, both single parent and two-parent. Further the decision should not be looked at as the action of a woman thinking independently because abortion requires the "cooperation of many people beyond the woman herself".
She said in October 2014 that Jewish tradition "does not have the concept of the personhood of the fetus (much less the embryo or fertilized egg). In Jewish law, you become a person when you draw your first breath."
[
]
A group of feminist scholars and activists analyzed Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights for "Short Takes: Provocations on Public Feminism," an initiative of the feminist journal .
Personal life
On June 6, 1987, she married Randy Cohen, author of the New York Times Magazine column "The Ethicist."[
] They later divorced. They have a daughter. On April 29, 2006, Pollitt married the political theorist Steven Lukes.
Awards, honors, grants
-
The Frost Place poet in residence (1977)*
-
National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry (for Antarctic Traveler, 1983)
-
National Endowment for the Arts (grant, 1984)
-
Academy of American Poets ("Peter I. B. Lavan Younger Poets Award," 1984)
-
Fulbright Scholarship (1985)
-
Arvon Foundation (1986)
-
New York Foundation for the Arts (1987)
-
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation (Fellowship, 1987)
-
National Magazine Award (for "Essays and Criticism," 1992)
-
Whiting Awards (1992)
-
Planned Parenthood Federation of America ("Maggie Award," 1993)
-
Freedom from Religion Foundation ("Freethought Heroine Award," 1995)
-
National Women's Political Caucus ("Exceptional Merit Media Award," 2001)
-
National Magazine Award (for "Best Columns and Commentary," 2003)
-
American Book Award ("Lifetime Achievement Award," 2010)
-
The Nation Institute (Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow)
-
Freedom From Religion Foundation (Honorary Board of distinguished achievers 2010)
-
American Humanist Association ("Humanist Heroine," 2013)
Bibliography
-
Antarctic Traveller: Poems (Knopf, 1982) ()
-
Reasonable Creatures: Essays on Women and Feminism (Vintage, 1995) ()
-
Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture (Modern Library Paperbacks, 2001) ()
-
Virginity or Death!: And Other Social and Political Issues of Our Time (Random House, 2006) ()
-
Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories (Random House, 2007) ()
-
The Mind-Body Problem: Poems (Random House, 2009) ()
-
Pro: Reclaiming Abortion Rights (Picador, 2014) ()
External links
