A Big Week for Univ. of Washington Poets

When I was a neurotic MFA-fiction student at the University of Washington, the poetry faculty included David Wagoner and Heather McHugh. One the students I knew there was Martha Silano.

This year, David Wagoner is guest editor of the Best American Poetry 2009 anthology (to be published at any moment), and this week Martha Silano is flying to New York to read alongside Billy Collins, Mark Doty, John Ashbery and the other poets included in "Best". And Heather McHugh has just been awarded a MacArthur Foundation "Genius" award.

National Public Radio:

Poet Heather McHugh mines words for contradictions and double meanings, offering the reader an expansive, fresh perspective on themes like love and mortality.

McHugh was recently rewarded a MacArthur fellowship for her efforts. The so-called genius grant comes with a $500,000 honorarium, which, the poet says, she will use to pay more attention to her work.

"I need to get back to my own work," McHugh tells Robert Siegel. "I've been teaching for 33 years, and to learn to teach has been to learn to pay attention to the work of others. And I've been doing that pretty ardently yea these many years, now and again taking a leave of absence."

The funny thing is, during my brief time in the Fiction program at UW, no one ever seemed to *see* Heather McHugh. She was always on some kind of sabbatical or leave.

Who was she paying attention to so ardently?

Maybe Martha Silano.