Constance Merritt is an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 poet

Poet

A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...

. Born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Pine Bluff, Arkansas

Pine Bluff is the largest city and county seat of Jefferson County, Arkansas, United States. It is also the principal city of the Pine Bluff Metropolitan Statistical Area and part of the Little Rock-North Little Rock-Pine Bluff, Arkansas Combined Statistical Area...

 in 1966, and educated at the Arkansas School for the Blind in Little Rock

Little Rock, Arkansas

Little Rock is the capital and the largest city of the U.S. state of Arkansas. The Metropolitan Statistical Area had a population of 699,757 people in the 2010 census...

. She is also the winner of the Vassar Miller

Vassar Miller

Vassar Miller was a writer and poet.Miller was born in Houston, Texas, the daughter of real estate invester Jesse G. Miller. She began writing as a child, composing on a typewriter due to the cerebral palsy which affected her speech and movement. She attended the University of Houston, receiving...

 Prize in Poetry and a finalist for the William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams

William Carlos Williams was an American poet closely associated with modernism and Imagism. He was also a pediatrician and general practitioner of medicine, having graduated from the University of Pennsylvania...

 Book Award. In 2001, Merritt received a grant from the Rona Jaffe

Rona Jaffe

Rona Jaffe was a popular American novelist, publishing numerous works from 1958-2003. She may have been best known for her controversial novel, Mazes and Monsters...

 Writers' Foundation and a fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard is an educational institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and one of the semiautonomous components of Harvard University. It is heir to the name and buildings of Radcliffe College, but unlike that historical institution, its focus is directed...

 at Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

. From 2003 to 2005, Merritt served as the Margaret Banister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College

Sweet Briar College

Sweet Briar College is a liberal arts women's college in Sweet Briar, Virginia, about north of Lynchburg, Virginia. The school's Latin motto translates as: "She who has earned the rose may bear it."...

. Merritt lives in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

.

Collections of poems

Merritt is the author of three collections of poems: Two Rooms (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2009), Blessings and Inclemencies (Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2007) and A Protocol for Touch (Denton: UNT Press, 2000).

• Two Rooms: Poems:Louisiana State University Press
  Louisiana State University Press
  The Louisiana State University Press is a nonprofit book publisher and an academic unit of Louisiana State University. Founded in 1935, the press publishes scholarly, general interest, and regional books as part of the university’s mission to disseminate knowledge and culture...
  
  , 2009

External links

• Three Poems by Constance Merritt