Betsy Sholl

Elizabeth "Betsy" Sholl (born 1945) Sholl published her first three poetry collections with Alice James Books: Changing Faces, Appalachian Winter (1978) and Rooms Overhead (1986).

In 1991, Sholl's chapbook Pick a Card won the Maine Chapbook Competition, which was judged by Donald Hall. That same year, her poetry collection The Red Line won the Association of Writers & Writing Programs award for poetry. The National Endowment for the Arts gave Sholl an artist fellowship in 1994. Dove, a previous holder of the position of US Poet Laureate, described Sholl's poems as "what narrative can aspire to – namely, the grace and ease of the lyric rhapsody".

Sholl's collection Otherwise Unseeable won two prizes, the 2014 Four Lakes Prize in Poetry, and the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Poetry.

Sholl taught at the University of Southern Maine for over two decades. She teaches in the Master of Fine Arts program at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she has been a visiting poet at the University of Pittsburgh and at Bucknell University,

Regarding poetry, Sholl has said that its main purpose "is to refresh or renew the language" and that "it renews the presence and aliveness of language".

Personal life and education Born in Lakewood Township, New Jersey, Sholl grew up in Bricktown, New Jersey. In 1967, she gained a BA in English Literature from Bucknell University, in 1969 an MA from the University of Rochester, and in 1989 a MFA in writing from Vermont College.

Published works Full-length poetry collections

Chapbooks

Contributions in anthologies

Contributions in literary journals