Adrien Stoutenburg

Adrien Stoutenburg (December 1, 1916-April 14, 1982) was born in Darfur, Minnesota in 1916. She attended high school in Minneapolis and then attended the Minneapolis School of Art. She worked as a librarian, editor, and reporter before focusing on writing fiction and poetry. Stoutenburg’s later poems are about her hospitalization with cancer. She died from cancer in 1982 in California, and her papers and documents are a part of the University of California—Berkeley library. Some of her other papers are held at the University of Mississippi.

A poet and children’s novelist, Stoutenburg was inspired by folklore and used the imaginary as a way of interpreting history and her own perspective on real life. Her poetry has been featured in several anthologies and she authored more than three dozen children’s books. Some of her works include Heroes Advise Us, American Tall Tales, A Short History of the Fur Trade, and the biography Listen America: A Life of Walt Whitman. Stoutenburg won many awards for her poetry including the Lamont Poetry Award, nine Borestone Mountain Awards, and two Poetry Society of America awards.