The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation recently
announced their 2015 class of grantees. These so-called "genius
grants" are unique in many ways, notably that there is no application
process and the prize money ($625,000 over five years) is given with no strings
attached to help support the grantee and encourage them to explore their area
of interest without financial risks. This year, two poets - 72-year old Ellen Bryant Voigt of
Vermont, and 36-year old Ben Lerner of New York - were selected as grantees.
Voigt's recent work includes Headwaters (2013), Messenger: New and
Selected Poems 1976-2006, and Shadow of Heaven (2002). Lerner's work includes
Mean Free Path (2010); Angle of Yaw (2006), which was a finalist for the
National Book Award; and Mean Free Path (2010). His sonnet sequence, The
Lichtenberg Figures (2004), won the Hayden Carruth Award, was chosen by Library
Journal as one of the year’s 12 best poetry book.
Students' conventional wisdom may suggest poetry is old, inaccessible, or
boring but introducing them to these two "genius" poets (and their fellow class of grantees, perhaps) may just get a new conversation started!
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| 2015 MacArthur "Genius" Award Recipients and poets Ellen Bryan Voigt and Ben Lerner |
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