Kelly Cherry was born on December 21, 1940, and passed away on March 18, 2022. She was an American writer, poet, professor, and literary critic who served as Poet Laureate of Virginia from 2010 to 2012. She wrote over 30 books, including poetry collections such as Songs for a Soviet Composer, Death and Transfiguration, Rising Venus, and The Retreats of Thought. Her short stories were published in collections like The Best American Short Stories, Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards, The Pushcart Prize, and New Stories from the South. She received many awards for her work.
Life
Cherry was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to J. Milton, who was a violinist and music professor, and Mary Spooner, who was a violinist and writer. When she was 5 years old, she moved to Ithaca, New York. At age 9, she moved to Chesterfield County, Virginia.
She earned her bachelor's degree from Mary Washington College in 1961. In 1967, she received an MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. In 1966, she married Jonathan Silver. They divorced in 1969. Later, she married Walter Burke Davis III, who worked as a writer, journalist, and bookseller.
Cherry passed away on March 18, 2022, at the age of 81. The editors of storySouth honored her by dedicating the magazine's spring 2022 issue to her for her support of "all the little magazines."
Career
Cherry graduated from the University of Mary Washington in 1961. She studied philosophy at the University of Virginia as a Du Pont Fellow and earned a Master of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. After working in publishing for several years, she began teaching at Southwest Minnesota State College. In 1977, she started teaching at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Later, she became the Eudora Welty Professor Emerita of English and Evjue-Bascom Professor Emerita in the Humanities at the same university.
Cherry retired in 1999. After retiring, she held positions as a distinguished writer and chair at several universities, including the University of Alabama in Huntsville (Eminent Scholar), Colgate University, Mercer University, Atlantic Center for the Arts, and Hollins University.
She lived in Halifax, Virginia, and was named the state's Poet Laureate by Governor Bob McDonnell in July 2010. She succeeded Claudia Emerson, who held the title from 2008 to 2010.
Literary themes and styles
Cherry's poetry often explored topics like philosophy and language. It was described as trying to "find ways in poetry that are similar to methods used in science or strict philosophy." Cherry herself explained it as "becoming aware of how abstract ideas appear in real life, because to create an abstract idea, you must have something real to start with."
In her novels, she focused on moral questions and how they shape people's lives over time. She said, "My novels look at moral choices and how they show themselves in life. My poems try to find the best way to structure feelings through time." According to Contemporary Authors, Cherry "writes stories that are easy to read and show the uncertainty and quiet sadness of life in the twentieth century."
From the start of her career, Cherry wrote both structured poems and free-form poems. A citation before she won the James G. Hanes Poetry Prize in 1989 said, "Her poetry shows strong intellectual energy, a deep respect for real ideas from our time, and a clever, thoughtful humor." A review of her book Relativity in Three Rivers Poetry Journal noted that "her knowledge of traditional poetic rules helped her grow as a poet, adding depth to her use of images, meaning, and language." Mark Harris said that Cherry's "ability to repeat and group images to tell a story helps her write longer poems. 'A Bird's Eye View of Einstein,' the longest poem in Relativity, is an example of her best work."
In a review of her collection Death and Transfiguration, Patricia Gabilondo wrote in The Anglican Theological Review that "the abstract poem 'Requiem,' which ends the book, turns personal loss into something bigger, showing how suffering connects to history and philosophy. It reflects on the mystery of pain and the need for hope in a world after the Holocaust that seems to offer none. Cherry moves through difficult ideas like meaninglessness and doubt, balancing deep thoughts with strong images to create a clear and moving picture of how people suffer and how God relates to humanity's memory of pain."