Assistant Professor Mary Szybist wins poetry fellowship

Mary Szybist, assistant professor of English:

Szybist is one of only two poets in the country selected by the U.S. Poet Laureate, Kay Ryan, for the 2009 Witter Bynner Fellowship.  As part of this honor, Syzbist will read her poetry on February 26 at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. and receive a $10,000 fellowship provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry. In return, fellowship winners are asked to organize a reading in their hometown and participate in the reading and recording session at the Library of Congress. On Szybist’s poetry, Ryan said, “Mary Szybist’s lovely musical touch is light and exact enough to catch the weight and grind of love. This is a hard paradox to master as she does.”

Read more about Szybist, her work and hear her read selected poems.

28 February 2009

• English
• faculty
• fellowship
• honor
• poetry
• reading

0

Poetry professor wins NEA grant for creative writing

Mary Szybist, assistant professor of English, received a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Literature Fellowship in creative writing this month. The highly competitive fellowships of $25,000 each are given to published creative writers of exceptional talent, encouraging the production of new work and allowing writers the time and means to write. One of the foremost awards in the literary field, the NEA grant will support Szybist’s work on her second book of poems, tentatively titled Incarnadine.

“A grant like this is a boost of adrenaline to the writing process,” said Szybist. “As I’ve worked on my current manuscript for the last few years, I have cycled through periods of faith and doubt, both about the poems and the project as a whole. To have the NEA select my work for this distinction is a great gift of validation, and I am eager to return to my manuscript with a renewed sense of vigor and excitement.”

Szybist’s poetry has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, The Iowa Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, Tin House, and Best American Poetry 2008. Her first book, Granted, was named one of the top ten books of poetry in 2003 by Library Journal. Also that year, Szybist was a finalist for the National Book Circle Critic’s Award in Poetry.

Listen to Szybist read her work at the Poetry website.

8 December 2008

• English
• faculty
• fellowship
• grant
• literary arts
• national distinction
• poetry

0

Associate Professor Kim Stafford offers poetry in motion in Portland

Kim Stafford, associate professor and director of the Northwest Writing Institute:

Stafford will lead a Poetry and Bridge Walk on June 21. For more information on this series of walks, visit Poetry in motion: bridge walks.

1 June 2008

• faculty
• Northwest Writing Institute
• poetry

0