Discipline: Literature – poetry

Marcia Nardi

Discipline: Literature – poetry
MacDowell Fellowships: 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1965
Marcia Nardi (1902-1990) was an American poet. Nardi contributed poetry and book reviews to publications such as The Nation, The New Republic, Quarterly Review of Literature, The New York Times, and the New York Herald Tribune. In 1942 Nardi met William Carlos Williams with whom she began a correspondence. Williams used Nardi's letters, which discuss the difficulties of being a female poet in contemporary literary circles, in his epic poem “Paterson.” Williams also encouraged Nardi to publish her poetry, an endeavor that came to fruition with Nardi's first book, Poems, published by Swallow Press in 1956. In the 1940s Nardi married painter and writer John Charles Lang and the couple resided in a community of artists called Maverick Colony. Nardi worked extensively with John Edmunds between 1972 and 1983 with the intention of publishing a collection of her poetry; however this project did not result in a publication before Nardi's death in 1990.