Ingrid Reti Literary Grant Awarded

Poet Helen Knight of San Luis Obispo is the winner of the 2009 Ingrid Reti Literary Grant. She will receive $1000 for her selected poems that, according to the grant reviewers, “create vivid and self-revealing characters with fresh language. Her visions and versions of female archetypes compel the reader to want more." This annual grant was established as a partnership of ARTS Obispo, San Luis Obispo County Arts Council and the family of Ingrid Reti, in memory of the beloved local writer and teacher.

Helen Knight was born and raised in San Luis Obispo County. She spent her childhood in Atascadero. When she was twelve, she and her family moved to a ranch near Creston. According to the poet, that landscape has deeply influenced her writing and her sense of home. She has written that even now it’s hard for her to imagine feeling more connected to a location - “the way the scent of the air changes with the seasons, the contours of the hills, the particular quality of light at sunset” - than she does to that parcel tucked between a crook in the road and the seasonal bed of the Huero Huero creek.

The poet moved to San Luis Obispo to attend Cal Poly and recently completed an M.A. in English. Writing poetry cropped up naturally during this time of discovery and occasionally she indulges in “the fantasy” of a life sustained entirely through creative work, while at the same time considering Ph.D. programs.

The Ingrid Reti Literary Grant review panel selected two Honorable Mention awards for the poetry of Paul Lobo Portugés and Rosemary Wilvert. Portugés is a prolific poet and author who currently teaches writing at Cuesta College. Books include The Visionary Poetics of Allen Ginsberg, Saving Grace, Hands Across the Earth, The Flower Vendor, Paper Song, Aztec Birth, The Body Electric Journal, The Silent Spring of Rachel Carson, and Mao (forthcoming). Wilvert is an ex-English teacher and the editor of HopeDance and Edible San Luis Obispo. She is a former San Luis Obispo Poet Laureate and in 2008, she joined six other poets in writing and publishing Poems for Endangered Places, to promote protection of our county's treasures.

The goal of the Ingrid Reti Literary Grant is to continue Reti’s work of mentoring San Luis Obispo County writers. This year’s award was given to the poet whose work best addressed “a sense of place, natural and/or cultural,” as chosen by a panel of respected literary reviewers from the local community. Reviewers were asked to base their recommendations on the quality of the applicant’s work and on the use of innovative methods of creative expression in their submissions.

A reception to honor grant recipients will take place in April, time and place to be announced. For more information regarding the annual grant or the reception, please contact ARTS Obispo at (805) 544-9251 or email programs@artsobispo.org.