Ellen Bryant Voigt draws from her childhood in rural Virginia and her life as a wife, mother, and teacher in New England to write poetry, grounded in regional, domestic experiences, which shows the possibilities of transcendence. She has been recognized, primarily by East Coast critics such as Edward Hirsch, as one of the most highly skilled, sensitive poets of her generation.

She was born in Danville, Virginia, on 9 May 1943. Her father, Lloyd Gilmore Bryant, was a farmer; her mother, Missouri (Zue) Yeatts Bryant, was an elementary-school teacher. After graduating from Converse College in South Carolina with a B.A. in 1964, Ellen Bryant married Francis George Wilhelm Voigt, a college dean, on 5 September 1965. A concert pianist, she then earned her M.F.A. (in music and literature) from the University of Iowa in 1966. The Voigts later had two children, Jula and William.

Ellen Bryant Voigt taught English at Iowa...