User:Ginny Gilbert

Virginia Gilbert (born December 19, 1946) is an award winning American poet and photographer. She is the recipient of a prestigious National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Literature, an Alabama State Council on the Arts individual Artist Grant in Literature-Poetry, and a Kodak Special Merit Award for her photography.

Contents

1. Life 2. Education 3. Professional Background 4. Critical Comments 5. Awards 6. Selected bibliography 7. References

1. Life

Gilbert grew up in Dundee and Cary, Illinois, and began writing poetry in high school. She continued her studies in creative writing-poetry at Iowa Wesleyan College where she was mentored by Ellen Bryant Voigt and Mildred Bensmiller. At the Iowa Writers' Workshop, she studied with David Ray, Galway Kinnell, George Starbuck, Kathleen Fraser, Anselm Hollo, and Marvin Bell. While there, her poem, "The Pax Romana," won First Place in a contest honoring the first Earth Day celebrations, with the poem being published in "The Daily Iowan." After graduating from Iowa, Gilbert joined the Peace Corps, and taught English at Jecheon Girls Middle/High School in the Republic of Korea where her students won numerous awards. Upon her return to the United States, Gilbert went to work at The Academy of American Poets. There, she ran and help set up the free Writers' Community Writing Workshops, while coordinating activities with Elizabeth Kray, Helen Chasin, Laurel Blossom, and Craig Nova. Gilbert later returned to teaching English overseas, going to work with several American companies in Iran. Gilbert was living in Isfahan, Iran, during the Islamic Revolution, and was eventually evacuated by the U. S. government in February, 1979, a few weeks after the Shah of Iran was deposed. Gilbert then took a university professorship in English and Creative Writing at Alabama A & M University. During her tenure there, she completed a Ph.D. in English and Creative Writing-Poetry at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Currently, Gilbert is Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at Alabama A & M University, and lives in Alabama.

2. Education

1984-91: Ph.D., English, University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Creative Writing-Poetry, oral waived 1974-75: Further study in Creative Writing, University of Utah, Salt Lake City. 1969-71: M. F. A. in Creative Writing-Poetry, University of Iowa, Iowa City. 1965-69: B. A., Iowa Wesleyan College, Mt. Pleasant. Major: English Minor: Liberal Arts.

3. Professional Background

Professor Emerita, Alabama A & M University; Professor, Department of English, Alabama A&M University, Normal, May, 2001, to August 1, 2007; Associate Professor, June, 1992, to May, 2001; Assistant Professor, January, 1980 to June, 1992. Director, Program in Creative Writing and Visiting Reading Series; Chairman, Share Our Strength Writers’ Harvest Reading; Co-chair, SACS Reaccreditation Committee for the Improvement of the Cultural On-Campus Environment, 2003-4, First Place SACS Award for Best Plan, 2005; New Library Building Committee, Springfest, others.

Administrator, The Academy of American Poets and the Writers' Community, New York City, January,1976-July, 1976.

4. Critical Comments

Gilbert is known for her ability to combine the complex with simplicity. Her poetry often contains references to history, art, travel, and the sublime.

“The voice can leap from that of clear anecdotal narrative....to that of a power-charged dream vision.”--Albert Goldbarth, introduction, That Other Brightness

“I like her work a lot; it speaks of a strong sense of place, and the places could be just about anywhere....Ginny can look hard and long at what is familiar and see it fresh and new, and look at something new and strange and find in it something familiar, and sometimes even eternal.....It is a sensitive, educated eye....Even if you have been there before, I promise you will experience these places in a new way.”--Frances Robb, WLRH Public Radio review, June 8, 1996

“In That Other Brightness, Virginia Gilbert takes us down a river of language....To read Gilbert’s poems is to launch oneself upon a journey of profundity.”--Kennette Wilkes in Prairie Schooner.

“Gilbert’s poem ‘Driving’ offers one of the best poem endings I’ve read in a long time. Although there is an ‘I’ at the center of many of these poems, the seer is more interested in what she sees, and what it might mean, than in herself. These are lyric poems that project themselves into the world, ask hard questions, and are grateful for beauty when it appears.”--Jennifer Horne, First Draft, winter, 1997-98

“A reader needs no great knowledge of poetry to appreciate the deep humanism and empathy in Gilbert’s work; she is a ‘poet’s poet,’ yes, but also one whose poems are informed by issues of everyday experience....”--Christopher Colon, RPCV Writers & Readers, July, 1997

Beneath the flow and flexibilities is an underpinning of sensitive, serious, firm thought. I like that in poetry and find so little of that in most of the poetry being written today.”--John Chambers, Publisher, Black Elk Press.

“As a widely traveled woman, she brings an interesting and original perspective to themes of death, beauty, burial and her insistent search for light....Gilbert inspires the reader to look upward, towards glimpses of light that remind us we’re not alone, whether under the earth or the star-marked sky.”--Katharyn Graham’ s review on Gilbert’s chapbook, The Earth Above, in Elk River Review, summer/fall, 1994

5. Awards

Writing

2009-2010 Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant in Literature for poetry; 2006 Alumni Achievement Award from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; Pudding House Nominated Poet for their juried Greatest Hits Series, May, 2002); Alabama State Poetry Society’s Poet of the Year, 2001; First Place, Alabama State Poetry Society’s Poetry Slam, October,17,1998; Alabama Humanities Foundation Speakers Bureau Fellow,1997-98; That Other Brightness nominated for Alabama State Poetry Society’s Book of the Year,1995; Share our Strength Conference of Leaders,1995; Fulbright Fellow, China, June 28 to August 5,1992; First Place, Adult, the Second annual Sakura Haiku Contest,1992; Title III Faculty Development Grant, Alabama A&M University, 1990-91; Hackney Award in Poetry, 1990; Nebraska Poets’ Association’s Chapbook Series, 1984; Outstanding Young Woman of America, 1980; National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry, 1976-77; First Place Honorarium, First Earth Day Competition, The Daily Iowan, 1970; Harlan Award, Iowa Wesleyan College,1966-69; others. Numerous awards in photography (see attachment).

Photography

Honorable Mention, Huntsville Times Travel Photography Contest, "People Category," 2012; Best of Show & First Place-B & W print, Northeast Alabama State Fair, 1988; Huntsville Times Travel Photography Contest, First Place (Chinese Boatman on the Li River), "Places" category, Huntsville, Alabama, February 27, 1994; Southern Wildfowl Festival, First Place, Open Competition, November 18-20, 1988; Lincoln Star Journal First Place Kodak International Snapshot Contest, 1986; Best of Show and First Place, Nebraska State Fair, 1986; Kodak Special Merit Award and Exhibition with the Kodak International Snapshot Contest, 1986; Cornhusker International Exhibition of Photography 7th Annual Slide Competition; "Missionary Cross," Best Nebraska entry, 1985; Honorable Mention, 1985; Peterson's Photographic Magazine, Finalist, Monthly Competition, 1984; Photographer's Forum's annual spring competition judged by Mr.Peter Reiss from Otis Parson Art Institute, Barbara Pearlman, photo instructor at UCLA, and Robert Flick, photo instructor from the University of Southern California; Honorable Mention and publication in Photographer's Forum, November issue, Best of Photography Annual: e1983; Huntsville Art League and Museum Association's 9th Annual Red Clay Juried Exhibition "Through the Looking Glass" selected for showing at the Huntsville, Alabama, Museum of Art, May 13-June 13, 1981; Huntsville Photographic Society Best Color Print of 1980, Best Black and White Print of 1981, Best Color Slide of 1982, Best Black and White Print of 1982, Best Color Print of 2011; Huntsville Photographic Society Master of Photography.

6. Selected Bibliography

Books: THAT OTHER BRIGHTNESS (Black Star Press, December, 1995); Sarah Fairchild, editor; second book of poems in progress

Chapbooks: GREATEST HITS, (Pudding House Publishers, May, 2004); THE EARTH ABOVE (Catamount Press, spring, 1993); TO KEEP AT BAY THE HOUNDS (Nebraska Poets' Association, fall, 1985). Anthologies--Whatever Remembers Us; An Anthology of Alabama Poetry; Ordinary and Sacred as Blood, Alabama Women Speak; Claiming the Spirit Within: A Source Book of Women’s Poetry (title poem for the section on Work); Cameos: Twelve Small Press Women Poets; I Hear My Sisters Saying; New Voices in American Poetry; I Love you All Day; it is that simple, others.

7. References

Contemporary Authors, Poets & Writers Directory, Peace Corps Writers Directory, Who’s Who in the South and Southwest, Who’s Who of American Women, The International Who’s Who in Poetry and Poets’ Encyclopaedia, Who’s Who in Writers, Editors, and Poets, Who’s Who in American Education," others.