Sabra Loomis (1938 – 2017) was an Irish-American

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

. Her poetry collection ''House Held Together by Winds'' (

Harper Perennial Harper Perennial is a paperback imprint of the publishing house HarperCollins Publishers. Overview Harper Perennial has divisions located in New York, London, Toronto, and Sydney. The imprint is descended from the Perennial Library imprint foun ...

, 2008) won the 2007 National Poetry Series. Her honors included

Yaddo Yaddo is an artists' community located on a estate in Saratoga Springs, New York. Its mission is "to nurture the creative process by providing an opportunity for artists to work without interruption in a supportive environment.". On March ...

and

MacDowell Colony MacDowell is an artist's residency program in Peterborough, New Hampshire. The program was founded in 1907 by composer Edward MacDowell and his wife, pianist and philanthropist Marian MacDowell. Prior to July 2020, it was known as the MacDo ...

fellowships. Her poems appeared in literary journals and magazines including ''American Poetry Review, American Voice, Cincinnati Poetry Review, Cyphers, Florida Review'', ''Heliotrope, Lumina, Negative Capability, Poetry Ireland Review, Salamander, Salt Hill Journal,'' and ''St. Ann's Review''. The daughter of Alfred Loomis of

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, she graduated from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private university, private research university in New York City, New York, United States. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded in 1832 by Albert Gallatin as a Nondenominational ...

, taught at the

University of Massachusetts Boston The University of Massachusetts Boston (stylized as UMass Boston) is a Public university, public US-based research university. It is the only public research university in Boston and the third-largest campus in the five-campus University of Ma ...

, and was on the faculty of the Poets' House, Donegal. She divided her time between

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and

Achill Island Achill Island (; ) is an island off the west coast of Ireland in the historical barony of Burrishoole, County Mayo. It is the largest of the Irish isles and has an area of approximately . Achill had a population of 2,345 in the 2022 census. ...

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

. Loomis died in 2017, at the age of 79–80.

Honors and awards

* 2007

National Poetry Series The National Poetry Series is an American literary awards program. Every year since 1979, the National Poetry Series has sponsored the publication of five books of poetry. Manuscripts are solicited through an annual open competition, judged and c ...

* Artists Foundation * Yeats Society * British Council * Yaddo Fellowship * MacDowell Colony Fellowship * Virginia Center for the Creative Arts residency

Published works

Full-Length Poetry Collections * * Chapbooks * ''The Ship'' (Firm Ground Press, 2001) * Anthology Publications * *

Reviews

The house in ''House Held Together by Winds'' is both mansion and metaphor. Our docent for each construction is a little girl in a lace collar whose satirical observations of her dominating relatives expose the fears at the root of chauvinism....Readers who allow themselves to be voyeuristically fascinated by the gothic eccentricities of these poems will be moved by the transformation.

References

External links

"Along the Quarry Road", ''Poetry Daily''

"Book of Hours", ''The San Francisco Jung Institute Library Journal'', Winter 1990, Vol. 9, No. 1
1938 births Loomis family New York University alumni University of Massachusetts Boston faculty Poets from New York (state) American women poets American women academics 21st-century American women {{US-poet-1930s-stub 2017 deaths