Posted: 04/18/07

Delanty gets Guggenheim fellowship
St. Michael's english professor awarded funding to write poetry

Erik Wells | contributing writer
ewells@smcvt.edu

St. Michael’s College english professor Greg Delanty has been awarded with approximately $40,000 in fellowship money from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to support his poetry writing. Guggenheim fellowships are awarded to scholars and artists as an asset to conduct research or create art. Of the approximately 2,800 nationwide applicants, 189 were awarded fellowships.

Bound for Greece

Professor Greg Delanty will be recieving approximately $40,000, which he will be using to travel to Greece in order to gain inspiration for poetry. (Erik Wells, photo)

Delanty will use the Guggenheim fellowship to live in Greece along with his wife and 6-year-old son, as a means to gain inspiration for his poems, he says. By the end of August, he will decide when he is going to go. Preferably it would be in the fall of 2008, Delanty says.

In order to receive a Guggenheim fellowship, an applicant must have already shown accomplishment in his or her area of interest and expertise, according to the foundation’s Web site.

Delanty was selected for the award entirely on the basis of the poetry he has written and the poetry he will write, Guggenheim Foundation President Edward Hirsch says.

Originally from Ireland, Delanty now holds duel citizenship in Ireland and the United States.

“He is an important poet who bridges Irish and American poetry,” Hirsch says.

Delanty has produced eleven books of poetry, including books edited and translated. Of these books, seven are of poems written by Delanty. His most recent publication, released in the U.S. last month is “The Ship of Birth.” It contains poems to a child before and after birth, inspired by the birth of his son.

The Guggenheim foundation was excited by the work already done by Delanty, which enabled him to rise to the top among the many applicants, Hirsch says.

“His work is remarkable in the way he takes a metaphor and develops it in an entire collection, like ‘The Ship of Birth,’” Hirsch says.

The writing process

"The Ship of Birth" is the most recent of seven books of poems written by Delanty. (Erik Wells, photo)

Delanty pursued the fellowship due to the high financial reward that gives him freedom for his work, he says.

To apply for the fellowship, Delanty submitted a portfolio of his previous work and a plan of how to use the fellowship to the Guggenheim Foundation, he says.

Delanty has applied for the Guggenheim fellowship before, but this year he made a more serious attempt in the application process then in the past, he says.

Starting in May 2008, Delanty says he will start to receive the money from the Guggenheim fellowship. He may spend the summer months of 2008 in Greece as well, but it is more likely that the family will return in the spring so his son doesn't miss too much school, Delanty says.

In Greece, Delanty will use his time to soak up his surroundings, the people, and the culture, he says. It is impossible to gauge whether he will write while he is there or not, Delanty says.

“I might not write any poems, poems don’t come like that,” Delanty says. “I can’t say ‘I’m going to write a poem today,’ I hope to write some poems while I’m away, or to get things while I’m away to help me write poems when I get back.”

The overarching importance of the trip is to be able to draw upon it to write in the future, something that the Guggenheim Foundation understands, Delanty says.

Greece is a place he has always wanted to visit, he says.

“It is basically the template for western society,” Delanty says. “Greek mythology, Greek democracy, everything was formed there and I want to see it and know it.”

Delanty loves teaching but he has not had a break from it in 20 years, and welcomes the opportunity to spend time over seas, he says.

With the chance to spend time in Greece, there is the hope that the experience will stimulate Delanty by providing him an opportunity to do something he hasn’t done before, Hirsch says.

The English department was thrilled for Delanty’s accomplishment, Professor Will Marquess says.

“It recognizes what we already knew, that he’s just a splendid poet who deserves this kind of attention,” Marquess says.

Marquess has known Delanty for nearly 20 years, since Delanty began teaching at St. Michael’s in the 1980s.

In the days when Delanty began teaching, informal poetry readings used to be held in the small art gallery in McCarthy Arts Center, Marquess says.

“This fellow (Delanty) started showing up at these readings and reciting poems from memory in this heavy Irish incantation, and we were all of course very struck by it,” Marquess says.

Delanty immerses himself in his poetry, Marquess says.

“He’s in touch with poetry as a way of being, as something more then just cryptic lines on a page, but something that you breathe and you hear,” Marquess says.

Inspiration

"I try to get everything in my life into the poems, but I don't force it either," Delanty says. (Erik Wells, photo)

Everything in the world inspires Delanty to write, he says.

World events, watching a presentation, and even the F-16s that fly over campus have inspired Delanty to write over the years, he says.

“I try to get everything in my life into the poems, but I don’t force it either,” Delanty says.

He has the strength to write about a great variety of things, Marquess says. For example, Delanty once wrote a poem about baseball because he became engulfed in the lingo of the game, Marquess says.

“The range of reference is a pleasure,” Marquess says. “You don’t feel like ‘oh I know what this poem is going to be about’ because almost each new poem brings up another way to think of the world.”

Delanty makes writing poetry more accessible and shows that a poem doesn’t have to have a complicated idea behind it, says junior Dan Delaney, who is taking poetry writing this semester.

“It doesn’t have to be about an earth shaking event," Delaney says. "You can write about anything."

Delanty made coming up with ideas for poems a more down to earth exercise, Delaney says. He brought it down to a realistic level, for example telling students to go for a walk then write about something they saw, Delaney says.

Taking an active political role also serves as an inspiration to write, Delanty says.

Recently he spent time in the mornings in front on the courthouse in Burlington as the trial between car companies and the State of Vermont over emission control took place, Delanty says. He held a sign that read “Stop Global Warming” as the judges, men and woman entered the courthouse, Delanty says.

Receiving the Guggenheim fellowship is something that Delanty deserved, Delaney says.

“It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy,” Delaney says.

Professor Delanty will hold a poetry reading from “The Ship of Birth” in McCarthy Arts Center on April 19 at 7 p.m. Poets Josephine Dickinson, and Galway Kinnell will also be part of the event.