Sister Mariella Gable Series

2009 Winner

Ellen Bryant Voigt's The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song is the most recent of seven collections of poetry, including Messenger: New and Selected Poems 1976–2006, which was a finalist for the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Throught the brilliant readings of poems by Bishop, Frost, Kunitz, Lawrence, and others, Voigt examines the signature musical scoring writers deploy to orchestrate meaning. The Art of Syntax is this year's selection for the Sister Mariella Gable Series, an award given by the College of Saint Benedict for an important work of literature published by Graywolf Press.

Her poems, which have appeared in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New Republic, The Nation, and many literary journals, have also been selected for a Pushcart Prize and Best American Poetry (1993). Voigt has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund.

Voigt served as the Vermont State Poet for a term of four years until 2003, when she was elected Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets. She developed the nation's first low-residency M.F.A writing program at Goddard College in 1976, and since 1981 has taught in the M.F.A. program for creative writing at Warren Wilson College. She currently resides in Vermont.

Ellen Bryant Voigt will share her work at the College of Saint Benedict during her residency October 20-23, 2009. Click Here for more information about her public presentations.

Sister Mariella Gable's spirit inspires the Literary Arts Institute and all of its programs. Dante scholar, poet, editor, writer, champion of new fiction, the late Sister Mariella Gable was an outstanding English professor who taught at the College of Saint Benedict from 1928-1973. In the Spring of 1984, she produced an essay on the first fifty years of CSB history, "In League with the Future". She guided many students into lives informed by literature and played an important role in the early careers of such writers as Flannery O'Connor, Betty Wahl, and J.F. Powers. An essay about Sister Mariella and her writings was written by Sister Nancy Hynes for the introduction to Mariella's book, The Literature of Spiritual Values and Catholic Fiction.

The Sister Mariella Gable Award is given each year by the College of Saint Benedict for an important work of literature published by Graywolf Press. Graywolf Press, recently described by Ploughshares magazine as, "arguably the best small press in the country," and the Literary Arts Institute have formed an innovative collaboration to explore new ways of promoting the literary arts on campus, to audiences in the surrounding area, and in the Twin Cities. The 2009 winner of the Sister Mariella Gable Prize is The Art of Syntax: Rhythm of Thought, Rhythm of Song by Ellen Bryant Voigt. Past winners include All of it Singing by Linda Gregg, Duende by Tracy K. Smith, the trilogy, Variation on the Theme of an African Dictatorship by Nurruddin Farah, The Collected Poems of Jane Kenyon by Jane Kenyon, The Weatherman by Clint McCown, One Vacant Chair by Joe Coomer, The House on Eccles Road by Judith Kitchen, and Loverboy by Victoria Redel, which was made into a movie by Kevin Bacon in 2005.