Claudia Emerson



Claudia Emerson (born January 13, 1957) is an American poet. She has won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for her poetry collection Late Wife, and received several other awards. She has also written several poetry books.

Background
Emerson was born on January 13, 1957 in Chatham, Virginia. She attended Chatham Hall, the University of Virginia (English, 1979) and completed a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 1991. Emerson lives in Fredericksburg, Virginia with her husband, Kent Ippolito, a musician who plays with various types of bands, including bluegrass, rock, folk, jazz, blues and ragtime. The couple were married in 2000 and together write songs and perform. Emerson was Guest Editor of Visions-International (published by Black Buzzard Press) in 2002.

Career
Emerson is a professor of English, and arrington distinguished chair in poetry at the University of Mary Washington, in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She is a contributing editor of the literary magazine Shenandoah. On August 26, 2008, she was appointed Poet Laureate of Virginia, 2008 - 2010, by Governor Timothy M. Kaine.

Emerson's work has been included in such anthologies as Yellow Shoe Poets, The Made Thing,  Strongly Spent: 50 Years of Shenandoah Poetry (Shenandoah, 2003), and Common Wealth: Contemporary Poets of Virginia, (University of Virginia Press, 2003).

Awards and honors

 * The Association of Writers and Writing Programs Intro Award, 1991
 * Academy of American Poets Prize, 1991
 * National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, 1994 (As Claudia Emerson Andrews)
 * Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship, 1995 and 2002
 * University of Mary Washington Alumni Association Outstanding Young Faculty Award, 2003
 * Witter Bynner Fellowship from Library of Congress, 2005
 * Poet Laureate of Virginia 2008 - 2010
 * Library of Virginia Virginia Women in History, 2009
 * Guggenheim Fellowship, 2011

Poetry

 * Pharaoh, Pharaoh. Louisiana State University Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-8071-2159-7 (as Claudia Emerson Andrews)