Myra Cohn Livingston (August 17, 1926 – August 23, 1996) was an American poet, writer, and educator who is primarily known for her books of free verse children's poetry.[1][2]
Myra Cohn was born in Omaha, Nebraska. Her family moved to California when she was twelve years old.[3][4]
She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, where she had studied under Horace Gregory and Robert Fitzgerald, in 1948.[5][6]
She was a professional French horn musician from 1941 to 1948 and a book reviewer for the Los Angeles Daily News from 1948 to 1949 and Los Angeles Mirror from 1949 to 1950. She was personal secretary for singer Dinah Shore and for violinist Jascha Heifetz.[5]
She lived in Dallas for thirteen years after she married Richard R. Livingston and she took a year off working, but she decided that she was dissatisfied without a job outside the home.[7] She worked at a bookstore and at the Dallas Public Library as a creative writing instructor.[8] She also published her first of many books of children's poetry, Whispers, and Other Poems (Harcourt, 1958). She had written it twelve years earlier when she was in college. Her early works drew upon her childhood and the experiences of her children.[6]
Her book The Way Things Are, and Other Poems received a Golden Kite Honor Award from the Society of Children's Book Writers in 1974. Poems for Jewish Holidays received a National Jewish Book Award in 1987.[8] She received a Kerlan Award from the University of Minnesota.[9]
Livingston wrote in an article that appeared in Language Arts in March 1978: "No one can teach creative writing.... One can only make children aware of their sensitivities, and help children learn of the forms, the basic tools of poetry, into which they can put their own voices. During these [twenty] years I have touched the lives of thousands of children and I have given praise when it is due, and criticism when it is warranted. But I have never told a child that he is a poet, for I know only too well the years and work it takes to be considered a poet".[6]
Livingston worked as a children's poetry consultant to publishing houses from 1975 to 1996.[5]
Livingston was poet in residence for the Beverly Hills Unified School District from 1966 to 1984. She was a senior extension lecturer at the University of California, Los Angeles, senior extension lecturer, 1973 to 1996.[5] Her students included Kristine O'Connell George, Hope Anita Smith, Sonya Sones, April Halprin Wayland, and Janet S. Wong.[10][11][12][13]
She married Richard R. Livingston, a certified public accountant, in 1952.[14] He died in 1990.[8] They had three children, one of whom, Jennie, is a filmmaker.[15][2]
Livingston was a collector of books.[6]
Livingston died of cancer on August 23, 1996, in Beverly Hills, California.[2][16][9]
The Children's Literature Council of Southern California's Myra Cohn Livingston Award is named for her.[17]