Madeline Gleason

Madeline Gleason was born in Fargo, North Dakota, on January 26, 1903. She moved to San Francisco in the 1930s, where she worked for the Works Progress Administration’s (WPA) Federal Writers’ Project and founded the San Francisco Poetry Guild, as well as poetry festivals. Along with other LGBTQ poets, including Robert Duncan and Jack Spicer, she was a part of what became known as the San Francisco Literary Renaissance. 

She is the author of several collections of poetry, including Collected Poems: 1919–1979 (Talisman Collected American Poets, 1999); Here Comes Everybody: New & Selected Poems (Panjandrum Press, 1975); Concerto for Bell and Telephone (Unicorn Press, 1966); and Poems (The Grabhorn Press, 1944).

Gleason died in San Francisco on April 22, 1979.