Marie Ponsot, a long-time educator and the author of seven collections of poetry, received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University in New York. Ponsot, now 96-years old, was on hand to accept the award and to read some of her poetry.
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, associate director of the Center for American Catholic Studies, said that Ponsot’s work is “an amalgam of fierce intelligence and courtly grace. Hers is a confident, yet compassionate voice that speaks from an unabashedly feminine perspective.”
Ponsot published her first collection of poetry in the 1950s. It was 24 years before she published again after raising seven children. Ponsot also authored two books on the art of writing including Beat Not the Poor Desk – Writing: What to Teach, How to Teach It and Why (Heinemann, 1989). She also translated more than 40 books from French to English.
Ponsot was a professor of English at Queens College of the City University of New York until her retirement in 1993. She also taught at The New School and Columbia University.
Ponsot is a graduate of St. Joseph’s College for Women in Brooklyn. She earned a master’s degree from Columbia University.