Betty Adcock
Elizabeth Sharp Adcock (born September 16, 1938)[1] is an American poet and a 2002–2003 Guggenheim Fellow. Author of six poetry collections, she has served as a faculty member in the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers in Asheville, North Carolina and in the Writer-in-Residence program at Meredith College in Raleigh, North Carolina. She has also held residencies at Lenoir-Rhyne College, Kalamazoo College, and Duke University, and has twice served as Visiting Distinguished Professor at North Carolina State University.[2] Adcock's work has been cited as a major influence on substantial artists such as 2006 Pulitzer Poetry winner Claudia Emerson.[3]
Life
[edit]The daughter of a landowner and a schoolteacher, Adcock grew up in San Augustine, Texas, a small farming community. The landscape of the area, a mix of West and Deep South, influenced her work. She moved to North Carolina after her marriage to Donald Adcock, who died in 2011. The two have a daughter, Sylvia.
Adcock is primarily self-taught. She has no degrees,[4] though she attended Texas Tech University, Goddard College, and North Carolina State University.[5] She studied and wrote poetry for more than ten years while working in the business world. After her first book was published, she was awarded a teaching residency at Duke University. Other teaching positions followed, most notably her ongoing position as Writer in Residence at Meredith College, which she held until 2006.[4]
Poetry collections
[edit]Adcock's poetry collections include the following:[6][7]
- Walking out: Poems, 1975
- Nettles: Poems, 1983
- Beholdings: Poems, 1988
- The Difficult Wheel: Poems, 1995
- Intervale: New and Selected Poems, 2001 (winner of the Poets' Prize and a finalist for the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize)
- Slantwise: Poems, 2008 (Louisiana State University Press L.E. Phillabaum Prize volume for 2008)
- Widow Poems, 2014
- Rough Fugue, 2017
Awards
[edit]Adcock's awards include the following:[4]
- State of North Carolina Artist Fellowship in Poetry, 1988
- North Carolina Award for Literature, 1996
- Texas Institute of Letters Prize, 1996
- Sam Ragan Award in Fine Arts, 1998
- Guggenheim Fellowship, 2002
- Poets' Prize, 2003
- Two Pushcart Prizes
- National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Poetry
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Literary Map of North Carolina: Elizabeth Sharp Adcock
- ^ "Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers". Archived from the original on December 4, 2008. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
- ^ Claudia Emerson, Poetry Foundation, retrieved May 28, 2026
- ^ a b c "BettyAdcock.com Bio". Retrieved April 26, 2009.
- ^ "NC Award Profile". Archived from the original on March 21, 2009. Retrieved May 11, 2009.
- ^ "LSU Press Authors". Retrieved April 26, 2009.
- ^ "BettyAdcock.com Books". Archived from the original on August 29, 2009. Retrieved April 26, 2009.
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