Carter Revard | |
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| Born | (1931-03-25)March 25, 1931 Pawhuska, Oklahoma, U.S. |
| Died | January 3, 2022(2022-01-03) (aged 90) |
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| Education | University of Tulsa Merton College, Oxford Yale University |
| Literary movement | Native American Literature,Free verse |
| Notable works | How the Songs Come Down |
| Website | |
| www | |
Carter Curtis Revard (March 25, 1931 – January 3, 2022) was an American poet, scholar, and writer. He was ofEuropean American andOsage descent, and grew up on thetribal reservation in Oklahoma. He had his early education in a one-room schoolhouse, before winning a Quiz Bowl scholarship for college, subsequently attendingUniversity of Tulsa for his BA.
His Osage name,Nompehwahthe, was given to him in 1952 by Josephine Jump, his Osage grandmother.[a] The same year, he won aRhodes Scholarship for graduate work atOxford University. After completing a PhD atYale University, Revard had most of his academic career atWashington University in St. Louis, where he specialized in medieval British literature and linguistics.
Since 1980, Revard had become notable as a Native American poet and writer, and published several books, as well as numerous articles about the literature. However, Revard was never enrolled as a citizen in afederally recognized tribe.
Revard was born inPawhuska,Oklahoma, a town within theOsage Nation on March 25, 1931.[1] His mother was Thelma Louise Camp, a white woman, and his biological father was McGuire Revard, who was Osage. He was raised by his mother and his fullblood Osage stepfather Addison Jump. Carter Revard was ofIrish,Scots-Irish, andOsage descent. He grew up on Buck Creek Valley about 20 miles east of Pawhuska, where he and his twin sister were among seven siblings.[2] The children were taught up to the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse.[1] He learned someOsage andPonca, which are related languages.[citation needed] Revard and his classmates combined schoolwork with farming tasks and odd jobs; Revard also helped traingreyhounds for racing.[1] He went toBartlesville High School.[2] Revard was not enrolled in any Native nation.[3]
Winning a radio quiz scholarship, Revard attended theUniversity of Tulsa, where he earned a BA in 1952.[1] He was mentored by Professor Franklin Eikenberry, who supported him in applying for aRhodes Scholarship for study atOxford University, where Revard matriculated atMerton College in 1952, taking a second class English BA degree in 1954.[4] After returning to the United States, he was encouraged by Eikenberry to do further graduate work. Revard earned aPhD in English atYale University in 1959.[1]
Revard first taught atAmherst College. Beginning in 1961, he started teaching atWashington University inSt. Louis, where he had his academic career.[5][1] The traditional territory of the Osage was in the Missouri region before they wereremoved to a reservation.[citation needed]
Revard's major scholarly focus throughout his career was onmedieval scholarship and poetry and their social context. He was a respected voice in this field.[5] He developed classes in language development for study by high school teachers. Revard also published scholarly work in the field oflinguistics on the transition betweenMiddle English and later forms of the language.[citation needed]
In 1967, Revard worked on a project in California funded by the military, which related to putting a large dictionary of the English language into computer accessible form, and developing programs to access it; he participated as a "semanticist linguist." It was related to computerizingWebster's Collegiate Dictionary. In August 1968 he gave a paper on this work inLas Vegas, Nevada to the Association for Computational Machinery. He also gave a paper on this work to theNew York Academy of Science, which had a "section on lexicography and with the special section on computers", and later published these.[6]
In 1971-1972, Revard went to England on asabbatical, where he tried to do medieval research at Oxford during a period of student unrest and disruption that damaged important library resources. During this period, he also started writing and sending out poems, which appeared in journals and anthologies, includingVoices from the Rainbow: Contemporary Poetry by American Indians released byViking Press in 1975. His first poetry collection,Ponca War Dancers, was published in 1980 by Point Riders Press out ofNorman, Oklahoma.[6] Many of the poems written about his Oxford period would be collected much later inAn Eagle Nation (1993), particularly "Homework At Oxford," in which the speaker walks the grounds of the university and has a dream vision of his childhood in north central Oklahoma. Revard has also been a visiting professor at the universities ofTulsa andOklahoma.
In addition, he published several critical articles aboutNative American literature, assessing it and placing it in the context of American literatures.
He was married to Stella Purce Revard, a distinguished scholar ofMilton. They had four children: Stephen, Geoffrey, Vanessa, and Lawrence. Revard died at his residence in University City on January 3, 2022, at the age of 90.[7]
Carter Revard was a member of theModern Language Association (MLA), the Association for Studies in American Indian Literature, the River Styx Literary Organization, the Association of American Rhodes Scholars, the University of Tulsa Board of Visitors, the St. Louis Gourd Dancers andPhi Beta Kappa.[citation needed]
He served theAmerican Indian Center of St. Louis as board member, Secretary and President.
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