Sonia Raiziss Giop was an American poet, critic, and translator.

Life

A native of Germany, Ms. Raiziss grew up in Philadelphia. Her father, Dr. George W. Raiziss, was a professor, at University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

. Her first work was published while she was in high school. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania

University of Pennsylvania

The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...

, and she also studied at Columbia University

Columbia University

Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...

 and the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

.

She was an editor of Chelsea (magazine)

Chelsea (magazine)

Chelsea was a small American, twice-a-year literary magazine based in New York City. The influential journal, edited for many years by Sonia Raiziss, published poetry, prose, book reviews and translations with an emphasis on translations, art, and cross-cultural exchange.-History:In 1958, The...

, from 1960–1994, with Ursule Molinaro

Ursule Molinaro

Ursule Molinaro was a prolific novelist, playwright, translator and visual artist, the author of 12 novels, two collections of short prose works, innumerable short stories for literary magazines and dozens of translations from the French and German...

, featuring poems and prose by Denise Levertov

Denise Levertov

-Early life and influences:Levertov was born and grew up in Ilford, Essex.Couzyn, Jeni Contemporary Women Poets. Bloodaxe, p74 Her mother, Beatrice Spooner-Jones Levertoff, came from a small mining village in North Wales...

, Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was an American poet, novelist and short story writer. Born in Massachusetts, she studied at Smith College and Newnham College, Cambridge before receiving acclaim as a professional poet and writer...

, Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco

Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...

, Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver

Raymond Clevie Carver, Jr. was an American short story writer and poet. Carver is considered a major American writer of the late 20th century and also a major force in the revitalization of the short story in the 1980s....

, and Grace Paley

Grace Paley

Grace Paley was an American-Jewish short story writer, poet, and political activist.-Biography:Grace Paley was born in the Bronx to Isaac and Manya Ridnyik Goodside, who anglicized the family name from Gutseit on immigrating from Ukraine. Her father was a doctor. The family spoke Russian and...

. She corresponded with Laura Riding

Laura Riding

Laura Jackson was an American poet, critic, novelist, essayist and short story writer.- Early life :...

, and David Finkel

David Finkel

David Louis Finkel is an American journalist. He won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006 as a staff writer at the Washington Post. He is currently assigned to the national staff as an enterprise reporter. He has also worked for the Post's foreign staff division...

.

Her work appeared in American prefaces, The Atlantic, Beloit Poetry Journal. Granite, The Prairie Schooner, Plainsong, Virginia Quarterly Review, Yale Poetry Review.

As a member of the League of American Writers

League of American Writers

The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...

, she served on its Keep America Out of War Committee in January 1940 during the period of the Hitler-Stalin pact.

She lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania

Bucks County, Pennsylvania

- Industry and commerce :The boroughs of Bristol and Morrisville were prominent industrial centers along the Northeast Corridor during World War II. Suburban development accelerated in Lower Bucks in the 1950s with the opening of Levittown, Pennsylvania, the second such "Levittown" designed by...

. She married Alfredo Giop de Palchi. She adopted a son, Peter St. Mu Raiziss of Sacramento, California

Sacramento, California

Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...

.

Philanthropy

Her Sinia Raiziss Giop Charitable Foundation (Alfredo de Palchi

Alfredo de Palchi

Alfredo Giop de Palchi is an Italian poet, and translator.-Life:He grew up in Legnago, Verona, Italy.He has been a political prisoner from the Spring of 1945 until the Spring of 1951....

 trustee) continues to fund the Jane Austen

Jane Austen

Jane Austen was an English novelist whose works of romantic fiction, set among the landed gentry, earned her a place as one of the most widely read writers in English literature, her realism and biting social commentary cementing her historical importance among scholars and critics.Austen lived...

 Essay Contest, Bordighera Poetry Prize, and the Raiziss/de Palchi Translation Awards.

Poetry

• "The Unripe Dead", Verse Daily, 2006

Criticism

• "Metaphysical Passion: Seven Modern American Poets and the 17th-Century Tradition," 1952 University of Philadelphia and reissued by Greenwood Press in 1970.