Sophie Cabot Black (born 1958) is an American prize-winning

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 w ...

who has taught creative writing at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Early life

Cabot was born in

New York, New York New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

and raised on a small farm in

Wilton, Connecticut Wilton is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. As of the 2020 census, the town population was 18,503. In 2017, it was the sixth-wealthiest town per capita in Connecticut, the wealthiest U.S. state per capita. Officially reco ...

. Pg. 34 Her father is David Goldmark Black (b. 1931), a Broadway producer, actor, teacher, writer and artistic director. Her mother is Linda (Cabot) Black, cofounder of Opera Company of Boston and Opera New England. She has two siblings: actor Jeremy Black, who appeared as the boy Hitler clones in '' Boys from Brazil,'' and Alexander Black. She also has two daughters. Her maternal great-grandfather was industrialist and philanthropist

Godfrey Lowell Cabot Godfrey Lowell Cabot (February 26, 1861 – November 2, 1962) was an American industrialist who founded the Cabot Corporation. Early life Godfrey Lowell Cabot was born in Boston, Massachusetts and attended Boston Latin School. His father was S ...

. In 1980, Black received her

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

from

Marlboro College Marlboro College was a private college in Marlboro, Vermont. Founded in 1946, it remained intentionally small, operating as a self-governing community with students following self-designed degree plans culminating in a thesis. In 1998 the coll ...

. In 1984, she graduated from

with a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts ...

Ancestry

Sophie Cabot Black is part of the Cabot family of the

Boston Brahmin The Boston Brahmins or Boston elite are members of Boston's traditional upper class. They are often associated with Harvard University; Anglicanism; and traditional Anglo-American customs and clothing. Descendants of the earliest English coloni ...

also known as the "first families of Boston." The status of the Cabot family is hinted from the widely known toast given in 1910 at a

College of the Holy Cross The College of the Holy Cross is a private, Jesuit liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts, about 40 miles (64 km) west of Boston. Founded in 1843, Holy Cross is the oldest Catholic college in New England and one of the oldest in ...

alumni dinner: "Here's to dear old Boston, The home of the bean and the cod, Where Lowells speak only to Cabots, And Cabots speak only to God." * John Cabot (b. 1680 in the

Isle of Jersey An isle is an island, land surrounded by water. The term is very common in British English. However, there is no clear agreement on what makes an island an isle or its difference, so they are considered synonyms. Isle may refer to: Geography * Is ...

) ** Joseph Cabot (b. 1720 in Salem,

Province of Massachusetts Bay The Province of Massachusetts Bay was a colony in British America which became one of the thirteen original states of the United States. It was chartered on October 7, 1691, by William III and Mary II, the joint monarchs of the kingdoms of ...

) *** Samuel Cabot (b. 1758 in Salem,

) **** Samuel Cabot Jr. (b. 1784 in

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

Massachusetts Massachusetts (Massachusett: ''Muhsachuweesut Massachusett_writing_systems.html" ;"title="nowiki/> məhswatʃəwiːsət.html" ;"title="Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət">Massachusett writing systems">məhswatʃəwiːsət'' En ...

, U.S.) ***** Dr. Samuel Cabot III (b. 1815 in

, U.S.) ****** Godfrey Lowell Cabot (b. 1861 in

, U.S.) ******* James Jackson Cabot (b. 1891 in Cambridge,

, U.S.) ******** Linda Cabot Black ********* Sophie Cabot Black (b. 1958 in the City of New York, New York, U.S.)

Career

Black's poetry has appeared in publications including ''AGNI'', ''

The Atlantic Monthly ''The Atlantic'' is an American magazine and multi-platform publisher. It features articles in the fields of politics, foreign affairs, business and the economy, culture and the arts, technology, and science. It was founded in 1857 in Boston, ...

'', ''

Boston Review ''Boston Review'' is an American quarterly political and literary magazine. It publishes political, social, and historical analysis, literary and cultural criticism, book reviews, fiction, and poetry, both online and in print. Its signature form ...

'', ''

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, Phi ...

'', ''

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 meani ...

'', ''Fence'', ''APR'', ''Bomb'', ''The New Yorker'', and ''

The New Republic ''The New Republic'' is an American magazine of commentary on politics, contemporary culture, and the arts. Founded in 1914 by several leaders of the progressive movement, it attempted to find a balance between "a liberalism centered in hu ...

''. Various anthologies have also included her work, such as ''More Light: Father & Daughter Poems'', ''The Best American Poetry 1993'' (edited by

Louise Glück Louise Elisabeth Glück ( ; born April 22, 1943) is an American poet and essayist. She won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature, whose judges praised "her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal". H ...

), and ''Looking for Home: Women in Exile''. Black's translations of Latin American poets have been included in the anthologies ''You Can't Drown the Fire'' and ''Twentieth-Century Latin American Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology''. Her essays appear in ''Wanting a Child'' and ''First Loves''. One of her poems was used in a song on an album by

Akiko Yano is a Japanese pop and jazz musician and singer born in Tokyo and raised in Aomori and later began her singing career in the mid-1970s. She has been called "one of the major musical talents of the Japanese popular music world", and her vocals and ...

. Black has received fellowships from the

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire, United States, founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDowel ...

(1988), the Fine Arts Work Center in

Provincetown Provincetown is a New England town located at the extreme tip of Cape Cod in Barnstable County, Massachusetts, in the United States. A small coastal resort town with a year-round population of 3,664 as of the 2020 United States Census, Province ...

(1988), and, most recently, the Bunting Institute of

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 h ...

. As of late 2003, she was teaching at Columbia.

Bibliography

Poetry

;Collections * Received the

Poetry Society of America The Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the society have included such renowned poets as Witter Bynner, Ro ...

Norma Farber First Book Award. *''The Descent: poetry'' (2004) Graywolf Press; 73 pages, (paperback) *''The Exchange'' (2013), Graywolf Press; 88 pages, (paperback) ;List of poems

Awards

*Grolier Poetry Prize, 1988 *John Masefield Award from the

, 1989 *Emerging Poets Award from Judith's Room, 1990 *Connecticut Book Award for Poetry, 2005

Personal life

Black lives in New York and

References

External links

Selected poems online
{{DEFAULTSORT:Black, Sophie Cabot 1958 births Living people American translators American women poets Cabot family Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Marlboro College alumni The New Yorker people People from Wilton, Connecticut Poets from Connecticut Radcliffe fellows