Director of Stonecoast M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing Receives Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award
July 20, 2009
Falmouth resident Annie Finch, director of USM’s Stonecoast M.F.A. Program in Creative Writing, has received the Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award for her lasting contribution to the art and science of versification.
This is the 11th Robert Fitzgerald Prosody Award given annually by the West Chester University Poetry Conference in which Finch was an original core faculty member.
Finch graduated from Oakwood Friends’ School, a Quaker boarding school in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., in 1973 and then studied at Bard College at Simon’s Rock, Great Barrington, Mass., before earning her B.A. in English literature from Yale University in 1979. In 1983 she earned her M.A. in creative writing at the University of Houston. Finch then entered the graduate program in English and American literature at Stanford University, where she earned her Ph.D. in 1990.
Finch self-published her first book of poetry, “The Encyclopedia of Scotland,” in 1982. Salt Publishing has since reissued it. Her subsequent books of poetry include “Eve” (1997), “Calendars” (2003), and the epic libretto “Among the Goddesses” (2009). In 1997 she founded the influential international listserv “WOM-PO: Discussion of Women’s Poetry.” In 1994 she moved to Maine, where she is currently professor of English and director of the Stonecoast M.F.A Program in Creative Writing at the University of Southern Maine.
The University of Southern Maine (USM) offers its 10,000 plus students more than 115 areas of undergraduate and graduate study. USM’s location in southern Maine, a region cited as one of the most liveable in the country, offers a range of educational, cultural and recreational opportunities.
