If you're like us, perhaps you've wondered what past MacArthur fellows have done with their money? Poet Amy Clampitt was on a Maine vacation when she got the news via telephone from her dear friend, writer Karen Chase. Chase showed me around recently. One year after getting the MacArthur award she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
Clampitt spent the last months of her life resting in the kitchen. Her bed was moved there so she could watch the birds in the backyard.
Chase remembers those days. She pulled out a folder of notes from a conversation Clampitt had with her husband Harold Korn eight days before she died in September Since the house Clampitt bought with her MacArthur money has been home to working poets for six to month, tuition-free residencies. Chase is one of the four committee members who come together each September to choose the winners.
Surprising as it may sound, she thinks Clampitt would be shocked to know this is happening. She would die again if she could see us all," Chase said. Her career ignited after getting her work into the pages of The New Yorker. In a NPR interview, Clampitt recalled the life-changing moment. Mary Jo Salter remembers that piece too. Not long after that she helped shepherd a manuscript to editors at the publishing house Alfred A.
Knopf, including Ann Close. Close, who also helps select the residents, said Clampitt skipped around the block when she got the call about her first book deal. He was a resident in the fall of But more importantly you would find her notes to herself.
