Judith
Saul Stix was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on May 26, 1932.
She
spent a turbulent childhood in a variety of family households and, at 12, was
expelled from her father's house at the insistence of her stepmother. At 16,
she received a scholarship to Washington University in St. Louis. There she
found a rich, fulfilling intellectual life, graduating with honors at the age
of 20. She married Ernest W. Stix, Jr., a St. Louis businessman, sculptor, and
art collector, in 1953. Three children were born in the first four years of
their enduring marriage.
In
1956, Judith Stix began to write poetry. In 2008, Ernest published Woman/Years,
a four-volume, hard-bound collection containing more than 1200 of
Judy’s poems. Woman/Years collects exactly 51 years
of poem work, carrying it to just beyond her 75th birthday. In 2024, Westgate Poetry Press published a selection of
her more recent work in a single volume titled Heart like a falling leaf.
Poetry
was her vocation. Her first two published poems were award winners that
appeared in an anthology of poems by Tennessee high schoolers, although
she would later claim that her poetry writing began in 1956.
The many
iterations applied to each poem attest to Judith's rigorous analysis
and disciplined method of working that she brought to her craft.
Beyond
poetry, Judy has written essays and
reviews for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch; eulogies, obituaries , and appreciations; biographies; essays, reviews, travelogues; letters; and serious contributions to Jewish history and genealogy.
