In Memoriam: Colette Inez (1930 – 2018)

Collette Inez
Belgian-born poet, Colette Inez died in January 2018. Here at VCCA, we mourn the loss of a good friend. This award-winning poet was in residence twelve times from 1983 – 2010.  Inez with her auburn air and bucket hat was a wonderful summer presence at VCCA.  See her tribute to a VCCA hornet in her poem below.

Inez was the author of eleven books of poetry and a memoir, and her work was published in over one hundred anthologies and textbooks. She collaborated with several VCCA Fellows, among them Pulitzer Prize-winning composer and VCCA Fellow David del Tredici. Inez and del Tredici produced a song cycle titled Miz Inez Sez for a CD that “may be the best new music album of the year” wrote The New Yorker. At the time of her death, she was collaborating with VCCA composer Gina Biver on a piece that is scheduled to premiere in October 2018.

Among her honors were fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, two awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, and three prizes from the Poetry Society of America on whose governing board she served.

An annual “American Academy of Poets Colette Inez Poetry Prize” is today accorded to uniquely talented liberal arts college and university students.

TO THE HORNET THAT WORE ITSELF OUT
TRYING TO ESCAPE A SCREENED-IN WINDOW      

No shot at the Book of August
halfway read, hot hours,
cicadas plucking bass viols.
Off limits, the sky’s
ultra violet shutting down
in late afternoon to thistles
with their traffic of finch,
hummingbirds, zebra
and tiger swallowtails.
Out of mind, the Book of Grasses,
leaves, seeds floating on water.
I thought to release you
but feared your sting,
the pain recalled
larger than my notion of your loss
Pall bearer, I carry your body
to the fields. Who will feed
on your carrion, in my palm
light as spider’s silk
spun across the boxwood shrubs?



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