Honorable Mention: Maggie Dietz, Poet, Exeter

Maggie Dietz is a poet and educator. Her first book of poems, Perennial Fall, was published in 2006 and she is currently working on a second book. Dietz  has received a number of awards for her work including the Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry, presented at the 2007 New Hampshire Literary Awards; an Outstanding Achievement Award from the Wisconsin Library Association Literary Awards; a fellowship from the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts in 2006; and the 1999 Grolier Poetry Prize.

Dietz was a poetry fellow for 2003-2004 at the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center, and has been assistant poetry editor for the online magazine Slate since 2000. She currently serves as director of the Favorite Poem Project, an initiative of former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky.  A graduate of Northwestern University who has an MFA from Boston University, Dietz has been an instructor at Boston University, Phillips Exeter Academy, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell.

In her artist statement Dietz wrote, “For me, writing a poem is an act of listening. I am ever-roving the aural airwaves for sounds or combinations of sounds that evoke or occupy or enhance experience. “

Last updated: January 28, 2011