Constance Merritt

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Constance Merritt is an American poet. [1] [2] [3] Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in 1966, and educated at the Arkansas School for the Blind in Little Rock. She is also the winner of the Vassar Miller Prize in Poetry and a finalist for the William Carlos Williams Book Award. [4] In 2001, Merritt received the Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers' Award and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. From 2003 to 2005, Merritt served as the Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College. In 2005 she received Arkansas's Porter Prize. Merritt lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

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Education

Besides attending the School for the Blind, Constance Merritt attended the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, where she received her B.A and M.A. She then attended the University of Nebraska, in Lincoln, where she received her PhD in creative writing. Also at the University of Louisville, Kentucky; Merritt attended and received her M.S. in social work.

Volunteer work

Constance Merritt and partner Maria Accardi, decided to help start a non-profit for low-income people who cannot leave their home, Bringing Justice Home founded in 2020, helps bring food and household supplies to individuals who are homebound during the pandemic. She currently plays the role of treasurer in this organization, which serves to provide food that people actually want and not just need “rejecting the idea that beggars can’t be choosers” (Maria Accardi from WDRB interview). Their goals include creating just relationships, fighting food insecurity, and providing resources to those in need of them.

Collections of poems

Merritt is the author of four collections of poems: Blind Girl Grunt: The Selected Blues Lyrics and Other Poems (Sequim, WA, Headmistress Press, 2017),Two Rooms (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2009), Blessings and Inclemencies (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2007) and A Protocol for Touch (Denton: UNT Press, 2000).

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References

  1. 2001-2002 Radcliffe Institute Fellows: Constance Merritt Archived 2007-12-18 at the Wayback Machine
  2. "The Poetry Center at Smith College". Archived from the original on 2013-04-26. Retrieved 2007-11-27.
  3. Dwelling: Poem by Constance Merrit: Ragged Edge magazine 2001 Issue 1
  4. NCW-Constance Merritt Archived 2012-07-10 at archive.today