Kalamazoo College Professor Emerita Gail Griffin—who taught in the Department of English from 1977 to 2013 and was key to founding what developed into the College’s Women, Gender, and Sexuality program—has recently earned three accolades for her poetry projects.

 Among her recent awards:

• Griffin earned a Pushcart Prize for the poem “The End of Wildness,” which she published in a recent collection titled Omena Bay Testament. The award is an American literary prize presented by the Pushcart Press to honor the best poetry, short fiction, essays and “literary whatnot” published in the small presses over the previous year.
• Headlight Review at Kennesaw State University in Georgia is recognizing Peripheral Visions— Griffin’s chapbook about her diminished eyesight as a result of macular degeneration—with its Poetry Chapbook Prize. The honoree was chosen by another poet, guest judge Valerie A. Smith. Headlight Review provided a cash prize and will publish the chapbook later this year.
• Griffin is co-winner of the poetry contest at New Ohio Review, judged by esteemed poet Naomi Shihab Nye. Griffin’s poem titled “Covenant,” for which she will share a cash prize, will be printed in the Review’s issue 35 this fall. Both “Covenant” and a separate poem, “It Comes Down,” are about the author’s brother, who died in December.

At K, Griffin twice was selected by students as the recipient of the Frances Diebold Award for faculty involvement in student life. She received the Florence J. Lucasse Lectureship for Excellence in Teaching, in 1989–90, and the Florence J. Lucasse Fellowship for Excellence in Creative Work, Research or Publication, in 1998–99.

In 1995, Griffin was selected Michigan Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. She received the 2010 Lux Esto Award of Excellence for exemplifying the spirit of Kalamazoo College through excellent leadership, selfless dedication and goodwill. In 2017, she received the Weimer K. Hicks Award for long-term support to the College beyond the call of duty and excellent service in the performance of her job. Her previous books include “The Events of October”: Murder-Suicide on a Small Campus and Grief’s Country: A Memoir in Pieces.

Griffin credits a local poetry group, first started by the late Professor Emeritus Conrad Hilberry, that she participates in for inspiring her to continue writing, leading to her recent success.

“I’m quite surprised to be having this little late career as a poet, since my first four books were nonfiction,” Griffin said. “I’m delighted that writing is at the center of my life now that I’m retired. One of my reasons for retiring at age 62 was to make sure that I could do this. Writing can be a very solitary act, but writing is also about community, and I think this community has really encouraged my poetry.”