A Reading: Marie Howe sponsored by the Maurice English Poetry Award

The Maurice English Poetry Reading, established by Helen Drutt English and Deirdre Elena English to honor the memory of the late poet Maurice English, presents each year a distinguished poet for readings in Philadelphia and New York. Previously held at Storm King Art Center in New York, the Maurice English Poetry Reading will be held jointly at the Rosenbach in Philadelphia and the American Irish Historical Society in New York City.

Salon | 5:30 p.m.
Program | 6:00 p.m.

About the Speaker

Marie Howe was born in 1950 in Rochester, New York. She worked as a newspaper reporter and teacher before receiving her MFA from Columbia University in 1983.

She 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. About Howe, Academy of American Poets Chancellor Arthur Sze said: “Marie Howe’s poems are remarkable for their focused, intense, and haunting lyricism. Her poems characteristically unfold through a series of luminous particulars that gather emotional power as they delve into the complexities of the human heart. Her poems are acclaimed for writing through loss with verve, but they also find the miraculous in the ordinary and transform quotidian incidents into enduring revelation.”

Her other awards include grants from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Bunting Institute, and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught at Tufts University and Dartmouth College, among others. In 2018, she was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Currently she teaches at New York University and Sarah Lawrence College. She lives in New York City with her daughter.