Poet in Residence & Electors
Poets in Residence
2020-
Marie Howe is the author of Magdalene (W. W. Norton, 2017), which was long-listed for the National Book Award; The Kingdom of Ordinary Time (W. W. Norton, 2009), which was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; What the Living Do (W. W. Norton, 1998); and The Good Thief (Persea Books, 1988), which was selected by Margaret Atwood for the 1987 National Poetry Series. The poet Stanley Kunitz called her poetry "luminous, intense, and eloquent, rooted in an abundant inner life." He selected her for a Lavan Younger Poets Award from the Academy of American Poets in 1988. Howe is the recipient of the 2015 Academy of American Poets Fellowship. Her other awards include grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2018, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
2010-2019
Marilyn Nelson is the author of 12 books of poetry, most recently, Faster Than Light: New and Selected Poems, 1996-2011 (Louisiana State University Press) and of numerous translations and children’s books, including Ostrich and Lark, Boyds Mills Press (2012). Nelson collaborated with the San artists of Botswana on Ostrich and Lark, and the proceeds will go towards supporting and training San people in the Kalahari. Her honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, two Pushcart Prizes, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, a Fulbright Teaching Fellowship, and the 1990 Connecticut Arts Award. The Fields of Praise: New and Selected Poems (1997) was a finalist for the 1998 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, the 1997 National Book Award, and the PEN Winship Award; The Homeplace (1990) won the 1992 Annisfield-Wolf Award and was a finalist for the 1991 National Book Award. Nelson twice won the Boston Globe/Hornbook Award, and in May 2012 was the recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s highest award, The Frost Medal, for “distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry.” Nelson is also the former Poet Laureate of the State of Connecticut.
2005-2009
Charles Martin is the author of 5 books of poetry, most recently Signs & Wonders, The Johns Hopkins University Press (2011), as well as two books of translation. He is currently working, with Gavin Flood of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, on a collaborative translation of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the recipient of a Literature award from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Bess Hokin Award from Poetry, multiple Pushcart Prizes, and fellowships from the Merrill Ingram Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Three of his books have been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, including Steal the Bacon(1987), What the Darkness Proposes (1996), and Starting from Sleep: New and Selected Poems (2002), which was also a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Award. Martin is a noted translator of Latin poetry; his translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses (2004) won the Harold Morton
Landon Award from the Academy of American Poets.
2000-2004
Molly Peacock is the author of 6 books of poetry, including The Second Blush (2008) and Cornucopia: New & Selected Poems (2002), a memoir and three works of non-fiction. Her most recent book is The Paper Garden: An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72, Bloomsbury (2011), chosen by The Economist as a 2011 Book of the Year. She has won grants and fellowships from the Leon Levy Center for Biography, the Danforth Foundation, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the New York State Council on the Arts. Ms. Peacock has twice served as President of The Poetry Society of America (1989–1994 and 1998–1999), and co-created the original "Poetry in Motion" posters on the New York City buses and subways. This initiative also resulted in the book Poetry in Motion: One Hundred Poems from the Subways and Buses (1996). She is currently working on AlphabeTique: the Lives of the Letters, an alphabet book for adults of all ages, and The Secret Gardeners, nonfiction about flower artists.
1988-1999
Daniel Hoffman (1923-2013) is the author of 13 books of poetry. Hoffman’s final book was Next to Last Words, Louisiana State University Press (2013), a collection of poems published the month of his death. He has also written seven books of criticism and a memoir. Hoffman (U.S. Poet Laureate 1973-1974) has received the Aiken Taylor Award for Modern American Poetry from The Sewanee Review; the Hazlett Memorial Award; the Memorial Medal of the Maygar P.E.N. for his translations of contemporary Hungarian poetry; grants and fellowships from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
1985-1987
William Jay Smith (U.S Poet Laureate 1968-1970) is the author of 13 books of poetry, most recently Words by the Water, The Johns Hopkins University Press (2008), a memoir, a book of criticism, and numerous children’s books and translations. His book My Friend Tom: The Poet-Playwright Tennessee Williams was published in February 2012 by University Press of Mississippi. Smith has been a member of The Academy of Arts and Letters since 1975, as well as a former vice-president for literature. Smith has won awards from the French Academy, the Swedish Academy, and the Hungarian government.
1983-1986
Daniel Haberman (1933-1991) is the author of The Lug of Days to Come: New and Selected Poems and Translations, John Daniel and Company Books (1996) and The Furtive Wall (1982) and Poems (1977), both published by Art Direction. His translation of the Erinna fragment appears in the Norton Book of Classical Literature and also in The Greek Poets: Homer to the Present, Norton.
Poets Corner Electors
The Electors, appointed by the Poet-in-Residence, serve staggered terms, and in discussion with the Poet-in-Residence work to come to a consensus on each year’s inductee.
