Elizabeth Spires (born May 1952 Lancaster, Ohio) is an American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

university professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Early life and education

Spires was raised in Circleville. She graduated from

Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States, closely follo ...

and

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

Career

Spires is a professor of English at Goucher College, where she holds a Chair for Distinguished Achievement. Her poems have appeared in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'', ''

Poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...

'', ''

American Poetry Review ''The American Poetry Review'' (''APR'') is an American poetry magazine printed every other month on tabloid-sized newsprint. It was founded in 1972 by Stephen Berg and Stephen Parker in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The magazine's editor is Elizab ...

'', '' The New Criterion'', ''

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published works by Jack Kerouac, Philip ...

'' and many other literary magazines and anthologies.

Awards and honors

She has been the recipient of the Amy Lowell Poetry Travelling Scholarship, a

Whiting Award The Whiting Award is an American award presented annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry and plays. The award is sponsored by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation Mrs. (American English) or Mrs (British English; standard E ...

, a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...

, two fellowships from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal ...

, the Witter Bynner Prize from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, two Ohioana Book Awards, and the Maryland Author Award from the Maryland Library Association.

Selected works

Poetry

* * * * * * * *

Children's books

* * *

Edited

* ''The Instant of Knowing: Lectures, Criticism and Occasional Prose by Josephine Jacobsen''.

Anthologies

References

External links

* Audio
Elizabeth Spires reads ''You Have Flown to the Dangerous Country''
from ''The Wave-Maker'' (2008) * Audio
Elizabeth Spires reads ''S n a i l''
from ''The Wave-Maker'' (2008) * Interview
Elizabeth Spires Interview (2010)
from KeepWriting.org * Profile and Publication Info
The Whiting Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Spires, Elizabeth 1952 births Goucher College faculty and staff People from Lancaster, Ohio Living people Vassar College alumni Johns Hopkins University alumni American women poets American women academics 21st-century American women