Vermont Public is independent, community-supported media, serving Vermont with trusted, relevant and essential information. We share stories that bring people together, from every corner of our region. New to Vermont Public? Start here.

© 2024 Vermont Public | 365 Troy Ave. Colchester, VT 05446

Public Files:
WVTI · WOXM · WVBA · WVNK · WVTQ · WVTX
WVPR · WRVT · WOXR · WNCH · WVPA
WVPS · WVXR · WETK · WVTB · WVER
WVER-FM · WVLR-FM · WBTN-FM

For assistance accessing our public files, please contact hello@vermontpublic.org or call 802-655-9451.
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

VPR's coverage of arts and culture in the region.

Cabot Poet On Her MacArthur 'Genius Grant' And Why We Need Poetry

Courtesy MacArthur Foundation
Ellen Bryant Voigt is a poet whose eight published collections meditate on will and fate and the life cycles of the natural world. She is a recipient of a 2015 MacArthur grant.

Vermont poet Ellen Bryant Voight has been named a 2015 MacArthur Fellow. The 72-year-old will receive what's informally called the "genius grant" including $625,000 to pursue her work with no strings attached.

Voight joined VPR to talk about her poetry and what this fellowship means to her.

On winning the award

"I was stunned. I had gotten a call asking if I would speak to them to help evaluate a candidate. And I said well, I wasn't sure I could be helpful but I would try," says Voight.

That candidate ended up being herself, and the evaluation was an announcement that she had been awarded a fellowship.

"I just was totally speechless, and then began to kind of weep with joy," says Voight.

Voight is uncertain of what the $625,000 grant will be spent on, but is focusing more on what it "frees [her] to do." A traveling teacher by trade, the money will allow her to take time outside of the classroom to focus on her craft.

"It's what I do not have to do anymore, and that gives me extra time at my desk. That gives me time in my house. That gives me time in Vermont," says Voight.

On Vermont's influence

"Living in Vermont, and living out in the countryside in the midst of all of this natural beauty and having this amount of solitude is very important to me as a person, and to who I am and what my temperament is," says Voight. "It's the person who makes the poems, after all, so it's bound to have a profound influence."

Voight says her work, especially her 2013 book Headwaters, is rooted in this environment.

"Most of the poems are indeed situated in this landscape and draw upon what populates it — both the people and also the animals. The trees, and the seasonal turns. That sense of being close to something that's very elemental," says Voight.

On the what poetry means

"I think [poetry] plays a very important role because it slows us down," says Voight. She claims that although technology is useful for disseminating information, it can often "bombards us" with a kind of information she calls "discursive information."

"The language used to convey [discursive information] really doesn't matter so much. The particular words are dissolving," says Voight.

"What a poem will do is slow us down. In fact, there are more books of poetry being published now than ever. There are more magazines and e-zines and poetry slams and access that would not be the case if people didn't have a hunger for it," says Voight.

Voight is giving afree reading of Headwaters Oct. 7 at the Town and Country Resort in Stowe.

Annie Russell was VPR's Deputy News Director. She came to VPR from NPR's Weekends on All Things Considered and WNYC's On The Media. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School.
Alex was a reporter and host of VPR's local All Things Considered. He was also the co-host and co-creator of the VPR program Brave Little State.
Latest Stories