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Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh (born August 20, 1948) is an American poet notable for Dangers, To the Quick, Eyeshot and Muddy Matterhorn. McHugh was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in the US and a Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She taught for thirty years at the University of Washington in Seattle and held visiting chairs at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Syracuse, UCLA and elsewhere.
McHugh was born in San Diego, California on August 20, 1948, to Canadian parents. Her parents raised McHugh in Gloucester Point, Virginia. There, her father directed the marine biological laboratory on the York River. She began writing poetry at age five and claims to have become an expert eavesdropper by the age of twelve.
At the age of 17, she entered Harvard University.
One of her most notable works, Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968–1993, won the Bingham Poetry Prize of the Boston Book Review and the Pollack-Harvard Review Prize. It was also named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. Another, "Glottal Stop: Poems by Paul Celan" co-authored with Nikolai B. Popov, won the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
McHugh was elected as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. She taught for some 40 years at American colleges and universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle, and still takes some students through the low-residency Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.
In 2009, she was awarded the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" for her work. Then in 2011–2012, she started the nonprofit CAREGIFTED to provide respite and tribute to long-term caregivers of the severely disabled and chronically ill. For her work there, she received notice from Encore.org's Purpose Prizes.
McHugh has published eight books of poetry, one collection of critical essays, and four books of translation. She has received numerous awards and critical recognition in all of these areas, including several Pushcart Prizes, the Griffin Prize in poetry, and many others. Her poems resist contemporary identity politics. She also rejects categorization as a confessional poet, although she studied with Robert Lowell during the time when that described his work.
Her primary education included parochial school, where she credits a nun's emphasis on grammar as an early influence. When McHugh was a student at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, a teacher advised McHugh against applying to Radcliffe, making her determined to get in. She arrived in Cambridge at age 17 and graduated with honors, receiving her B.A. from Harvard in 1970. She was a Fellow at Cummington Community for the Arts in 1970, and entered graduate school at the University of Denver in 1971, having already published a poem in The New Yorker. She began teaching there, and received an Academy of American Poets prize in 1972. After earning her M.A. in 1972, McHugh received MacDowell Colony fellowships in 1973, 1974, and 1976. In 1974, she also received her first of three National Endowment for the Arts grants in poetry. McHugh was the poet-in-residence at Stephens College in Missouri between 1974 and 1976; she worked as an associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton between 1976 and 1982.
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Heather McHugh
Heather McHugh (born August 20, 1948) is an American poet notable for Dangers, To the Quick, Eyeshot and Muddy Matterhorn. McHugh was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in the US and a Griffin Poetry Prize in Canada, and was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She taught for thirty years at the University of Washington in Seattle and held visiting chairs at Berkeley, Stanford, Columbia, Syracuse, UCLA and elsewhere.
McHugh was born in San Diego, California on August 20, 1948, to Canadian parents. Her parents raised McHugh in Gloucester Point, Virginia. There, her father directed the marine biological laboratory on the York River. She began writing poetry at age five and claims to have become an expert eavesdropper by the age of twelve.
At the age of 17, she entered Harvard University.
One of her most notable works, Hinge & Sign: Poems 1968–1993, won the Bingham Poetry Prize of the Boston Book Review and the Pollack-Harvard Review Prize. It was also named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. Another, "Glottal Stop: Poems by Paul Celan" co-authored with Nikolai B. Popov, won the Griffin International Poetry Prize.
McHugh was elected as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999. She taught for some 40 years at American colleges and universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle, and still takes some students through the low-residency Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.
In 2009, she was awarded the MacArthur Foundation "Genius Grant" for her work. Then in 2011–2012, she started the nonprofit CAREGIFTED to provide respite and tribute to long-term caregivers of the severely disabled and chronically ill. For her work there, she received notice from Encore.org's Purpose Prizes.
McHugh has published eight books of poetry, one collection of critical essays, and four books of translation. She has received numerous awards and critical recognition in all of these areas, including several Pushcart Prizes, the Griffin Prize in poetry, and many others. Her poems resist contemporary identity politics. She also rejects categorization as a confessional poet, although she studied with Robert Lowell during the time when that described his work.
Her primary education included parochial school, where she credits a nun's emphasis on grammar as an early influence. When McHugh was a student at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, a teacher advised McHugh against applying to Radcliffe, making her determined to get in. She arrived in Cambridge at age 17 and graduated with honors, receiving her B.A. from Harvard in 1970. She was a Fellow at Cummington Community for the Arts in 1970, and entered graduate school at the University of Denver in 1971, having already published a poem in The New Yorker. She began teaching there, and received an Academy of American Poets prize in 1972. After earning her M.A. in 1972, McHugh received MacDowell Colony fellowships in 1973, 1974, and 1976. In 1974, she also received her first of three National Endowment for the Arts grants in poetry. McHugh was the poet-in-residence at Stephens College in Missouri between 1974 and 1976; she worked as an associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton between 1976 and 1982.
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