The Bird Catcher

MARIE PONSOT, the winner of Poetry magazine’s Ruth Lily Prize for lifetime achievement, and the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America, was born in 1921. She is the author of six previous collections, including The Bird Catcher, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for poetry. A professor emerita of English at Queens College, CUNY, she also taught at the Unterberg Poetry Center of the 92nd Street Y, the New School University, and Beijing University. Ponsot, a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets from 2010 to 2014, lives in New York City.