21 Facts About Heather McHugh

Heather McHugh was born on August 20,1948 and is an American poet notable for the independent ranges of her aesthetic as a poet, and for her working devotion to teaching and translating literature.

Heather McHugh began writing poetry at age five and claims to have become an expert eavesdropper by the age of twelve.

Heather McHugh was elected as chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 1999.

Heather McHugh taught for some 40 years at American colleges and universities, including the University of Washington in Seattle; and she still takes some students through the low-residency Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers.

Heather McHugh has published eight books of poetry, one collection of critical essays, and four books of translation.

Heather McHugh has received numerous awards and critical recognition in all of these areas, including several Pushcart Prizes, the Griffin Prize in poetry, and many others.

Heather McHugh rejects categorization as a confessional poet, although she studied with Robert Lowell during the time when that described his work.

When Heather McHugh was a student at Yorktown High School in Arlington, Virginia, a teacher advised Heather McHugh against applying to Radcliffe, making her determined to get in.

Heather McHugh was a Fellow at Cummington Community for the Arts in 1970, and entered graduate school at the University of Denver in 1971, having already published a poem in The New Yorker.

Heather McHugh began teaching there, and received an Academy of American Poets prize in 1972.

Heather McHugh was the poet-in-residence at Stephens College in Missouri between 1974 and 1976; she worked as an associate professor of English at the State University of New York at Binghamton between 1976 and 1982.

The residency was initiated that same year, and Heather McHugh filled the position until 2011 when she was appointed Pollock Professor of Creative Writing.

Heather McHugh translated Dimitrova's poems for Wesleyan Poetry in Translation with her husband, Nikolai Popov, a scholar whom she married in 1987.

In 1986, Heather McHugh received a Bellagio grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Heather McHugh published two more books of poetry during the 1980s: To the Quick and Shades.

Heather McHugh began to serve as a judge for numerous poetry competitions, including the National Poetry Series and the Laughlin Prize.

Heather McHugh was a member of the Board of Directors for the Associated Writing Programs between 1981 and 1983.

Heather McHugh served on the Literature Panel for the National Endowment for the Arts during 1983 and 1986.

In 1992, Heather McHugh was the Elliston Poet at the University of Cincinnati.

Heather McHugh takes editing collections of younger poets seriously, and helped to select poems for Hammer and Blaze: a Gathering of Contemporary American Poets, published by the University of Georgia Press, which she co-edited with Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Heather McHugh was a judge for the 2012 Griffin Poetry Prize.