Ellen Bryant Voigt to Present at Lawrence Clayton Poets and Writers Speakers Series

Pulitzer Prize Finalist Ellen Bryant Voigt will read her poetry at the annual Lawrence Clayton Poets & Writers Speaker Series on Friday, April 21, 2017 in the Johnson Multi-Purpose Room. There will be a question and answer session from 3:30-4:30 p.m., a poetry reading from 7:30-8:30 p.m., and a book signing reception at 8:30 p.m.

Ellen Bryant Voigt is a highly recognized and honored poet. She was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2015. She has also been awarded the O. B. Hardison, Jr. Prize from the Folger Shakespeare Library. Voigt is a member of the Merrill Fellowship from the Academy of American Poets and the Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. She served as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2003-2009 and was named Vermont State Poet from 1999-2003.

Her book, “Shadow of Heaven: Poems” was a finalist for the National Book Award. “Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976-2006” was also a finalist for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Dr. Robert Fink, Professor of English and Director of Creative Writing, described Voigt’s poetic style.

“All of her poems are love poems that do not look away from the risks of loving, of holding on to faith, trying to hold on to faith, to truth, to God,” he said.

Voigt lives in Cabot, Vermont where she teaches in the low-residency Master of Fine Arts program for writers at Warren Wilson College, which she created in 1976. From childhood, she was trained in classical piano, turning to poetry in college. Her B. A. (1964) is from Converse College in Spartanburg, South Carolina. She received her M.F.A. in 1966 from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa. Voigt has also taught at Iowa Wesleyan College (1966-1969), Goddard College (1970- 1978), and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1979-1982).

The Lawrence Clayton Poets and Writers Speaker Series, presented by The McIntyre-West Endowment of the HSU Academic Foundation, was started 39 years ago by Dr. Lawrence Clayton, chair of the English department. Clayton played an instrumental role in securing funding to bring nationally-recognized poets and fiction writers to HSU, providing creative writing students access to publishing poets and fiction writers. Clayton’s name was added to the series after his death.

“At the piano, the girl, as if 

rowing upstream,

is driving triplets against 

the duple meter,

one hand for repetition,

one hand for variation and  

for song.

She knows nothing, but 

Bach knows everything.”      

from “At The Piano” (lines 1-5)  

Voigt, Ellen Bryant. “At The Piano.” Messenger: New and Selected Poems , 1976-2006, W. W. Norton, 2007, pp. 86-87.