Professor wins National Book Award in Poetry

Mary Szybist, associate professor of English, is the winner of the 2013 National Book Award in Poetry with her latest collection, Incarnadine. Szybist is the second National Book Award poetry winner from Lewis & Clark, joining William Stafford, who won in 1963.

Incarnadine explores religious iconography and was inspired by time spent in the art museums of Italy. “I was struck by how relatively few scenes—nearly all of them religious—were the subjects of most of the paintings,” Szybist told the Oregonian. “On the one hand, I felt relief that artists are no longer confined to such narrow subject matter. On the other hand, so many astonishing paintings emerged from those confines. To what extent had those limitations enabled the art?”

• Watch Mary Szybist’s acceptance speech [starts at 2:05]
• Read five poems from Incarnadine
• Read a Q&A with Szybist