Martha Collins (born 1940) is a poet, translator, and editor. She has published ten books of poetry, including ''Night Unto Night'' (Milkweed, 2018),''Admit One: An American Scrapbook'' (Pitt Poetry Series, 2016), ''Day Unto Day'' (Milkweed, 2014), ''White Papers'' (Pitt Poetry Series, 2012), and ''Blue Front'' (Graywolf, 2006), as well as two chapbooks and four books of co-translations from the Vietnamese. She has also co-edited, with Kevin Prufer and Martin Rock, a volume of poems by Catherine Breese Davis, accompanied by essays and an interview about the poet’s life and work.
Life
Martha Collins was born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised in Des Moines, Iowa. She graduated from
Stanford University
Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
with a B.A., and the
University of Iowa
The University of Iowa (UI, U of I, UIowa, or simply Iowa) is a public university, public research university in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. Founded in 1847, it is the oldest and largest university in the state. The University of Iowa is org ...
with an M.A. and a Ph.D. She taught at
University of Massachusetts Boston
The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus Un ...
, where she founded the Creative Writing Program in 1979; beginning in 1997, she was the Pauline Delaney Professor of Creative Writing at
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a Private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college and conservatory of music in Oberlin, Ohio. It is the oldest Mixed-sex education, coeducational liberal arts college in the United S ...
for ten years. In spring 2010, she served as Distinguished Visiting Writer at
Cornell University
Cornell University is a private statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach an ...
, and in spring 2013 was Visiting Fannie Hurst Professor of Creative Literature at
Washington University in St. Louis
Washington University in St. Louis (WashU or WUSTL) is a private research university with its main campus in St. Louis County, and Clayton, Missouri. Founded in 1853, the university is named after George Washington. Washington University is r ...
. She is currently editor-at-large for
''FIELD'' magazine and one of the editors of the Oberlin College Press, as well as a contributing editor to
Consequence Magazine' and
Copper Nickel''
In 1993 Collins began teaching in the summer workshop of th
William Joiner Institute for the Study of War and Social Consequenceswhere she met several writers from Vietnam, including poet Nguyen Quang Thieu. The next year she studied Vietnamese, and in 1998 published her co-translations of Nguyen Quang Thieu’s poems. Since then she has published three more co-translated volumes of Vietnamese poetry.
She is a featured faculty member at the 2018 Poetry Seminar at
The Frost Place
The Frost Place is a museum and nonprofit educational center for poetry located at Robert Frost's former home on Ridge Road in Franconia, New Hampshire, United States. The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
...
in Franconia, NH.
Poetry
Known in her first few books for somewhat formal lyrical poems that occasionally referenced larger issues such as homelessness and war, Collins learned from an exhibit of lynching postcards in 2000 that the hanging her father said he had witnessed as a child was actually a lynching of an African American man, attended by 10,000 people in Cairo, Illinois. In 2005 Collins published ''Blue Front,'' a book-length poem that involved research and focused on the event, and in 2012 she explored issues of race from both personal and historical perspectives in ''White Papers.'' Her latest book, ''Admit One: An American Scrapbook,'' addresses racism, eugenics, immigration and other issues, focusing on the early twentieth-century eugenics movement.
Cynthia Hogue has described Collins as “a dazzling poet whose poetry is poised at the juncture between the lyric and ethics
nd whohas addressed some of the most traumatic social issues of the twentieth century . . . in supple and complex poems. Those who have followed Collins’ books have long since realized that no subject is off limits for her piercing intellect."
Awards
* ''
Best American Poetry'' 2013
Ohioana Poetry Award 2013, 2007
* Visiting Artist
Siena Art Institute 2013
* Honorary Doctoral Degree,
Cleveland State University
Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. ...
, 2008
*
Anisfield-Wolf Book Award (2007) for ''Blue Front''
* 25 Books to Remember,
New York Public Library
The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second largest public library in the United States (behind the Library of Congress ...
, 2006
* Laurence Goldstein Poetry Prize,
Michigan Quarterly Review
The ''Michigan Quarterly Review'' is an American literary magazine founded in 1962 and published at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
The quarterly (known as "MQR" for short) publishes art, essays, interviews, memoirs, fiction, poetry, and ...
, 2005
*
Lannan Foundation
The Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional ...
Residency Grant, 2003
*
Witter Bynner
Harold Witter Bynner (August 10, 1881 – June 1, 1968), also known by the pen name Emanuel Morgan, was an American poet and translator. He was known for his long residence in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and association with other literary figures ther ...
/ Santa Fe Art Institute Grant, 2001
*
American Literary Translators Association Finalist Award, 1998
*
Pushcart Prize
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize published by Pushcart Press that honors the best "poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot" published in the small presses over the previous year. Magazine and small book press editors are ...
, 1998, 1996, 1985
* Gordon Barber Memorial Award,
Poetry Society of America, 1992
*
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 ...
Fellowship, 1990
* Peregrine Smith Poetry Competition for ''The Arrangement of Space,'' 1990
* Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award,
Poetry Society of America, 1990
*
Ingram Merrill Foundation Fellowship, 1988
*
Breadloaf Fellowship, 1985
* Mary Carolyn Davies Memorial Award,
Poetry Society of America, 1985
* Bunting Institute Fellowship,
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...
, 1982–83
*
National Endowment for the Humanities
The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...
Fellowship, 1977–78
Works
Poetry
*''Casualty Reports'' (
Pitt Poetry, 2022)
*''Because What Else Could I Do'' (
Pitt Poetry, 2019)
*''Night Unto Night'' (
Milkweed
''Asclepias'' is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans ...
, 2018)
*''Admit One: An American Scrapbook'' (
Pitt Poetry, 2016)
*''Day Unto Day'' (
Milkweed
''Asclepias'' is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans ...
, 2014)
*''White Papers''
(Pitt Poetry, 2012)
*''Sheer'' (Barnwood, 2008) chapbook
*
"Their Work," "Time Was," "Through," from Martha Collins'', Gone So Far''(2005)
*
*''History of a Small Life on a Windy Planet'' (
University of Georgia Press,1993)
*''The Arrangement of Space'' (
Gibbs Smith, 1991)
*''The Catastrophe of Rainbows'' (
Cleveland State University
Cleveland State University (CSU) is a public research university in Cleveland, Ohio. It was established in 1964 and opened for classes in 1965 after acquiring the entirety of Fenn College, a private school that had been in operation since 1923. ...
, 1985)
Editor
* ''Into English: Poems, Translations, Commentaries'', with Kevin Prufer (
Graywolf
Graywolf Press is an independent, non-profit publisher located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Graywolf Press publishes fiction, non-fiction, and poetry.
Graywolf Press collaborates with organizations such as the College of Saint Benedict, the Mellon ...
, 2017)
* ''Catherine Breese Davis: On the Life and Work of an American Master''
Pleiades Press 2015), with Kevin Prufer and Martin Rock
* ''Critical Essays on Louise Bogan'' (
G.K. Hall, 1984)
Translator
*''Black Stars: Poems by
Ngo Tu Lap'', co-translated with the author (
Milkweed
''Asclepias'' is a genus of herbaceous, perennial, flowering plants known as milkweeds, named for their latex, a milky substance containing cardiac glycosides termed cardenolides, exuded where cells are damaged. Most species are toxic to humans ...
, 2013)
*''Green Rice: Poems by
Lâm Thị Mỹ Dạ'', co-translated with Thuy Dinh (
Curbstone, 2005)
*''The Women Carry River Water: Poems by Nguyen Quang Thieu,'' co-translated with the author (
University of Massachusetts Press
The University of Massachusetts Press is a university press that is part of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The press was founded in 1963, publishing scholarly books and non-fiction. The press imprint is overseen by an interdisciplinar ...
, 1997)
Anthologies
*
*
*
*
*
*
* Bill Henderson, ed. (1996). ''Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses'' (
Pushcart Press, 1996)
* Bill Henderson, ed. (1998). ''Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses'' (
Pushcart Press, 1998)
References
External links
"Author's website"Interview at Mass PoetryInterview at Coal Hill Review"Poet Martha Collins Reads 'From the Sky'", ''NPR''*
ttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l2qvBRTISAY The C.O.W.S. White Poetry On Racism
{{DEFAULTSORT:Collins, Martha
Living people
1940 births
University of Massachusetts Boston faculty
Oberlin College faculty
Stanford University alumni
University of Iowa alumni
American women poets
20th-century American poets
20th-century American women writers
21st-century American poets
21st-century American women writers
Writers from Omaha, Nebraska
Poets from Nebraska
Writers from Des Moines, Iowa
Poets from Iowa
American women academics
Cornell University faculty
Washington University in St. Louis faculty