She was the youngest winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry at the age of 24, for her collection Bright Ambush.

Her first collection of poetry, 'The House of Silk' was published when she was 16, sponsored by California poet George Sterling.

She married poet and novelist Joseph Auslander in 1932 and moved to New York City, where he taught at Columbia.

They moved to Washington, D.C., when Auslander was appointed the first Poet Laureate Consultant in poetry of the Library of Congress; they lived at 3117 35th Street Northwest, Washington, D.C., in the Cathedral Heights neighborhood.

They spent their last years living in Coral Gables, Florida with their two children, Anna Mary and Louis Joseph Auslander.