Madeline DeFrees

Who is Madeline DeFrees?

Madeline DeFrees is an American poet born in Ontario, Oregon, and currently living in Seattle, Washington. She joined the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1936 and was known by the name, Sister Mary Gilbert until she was dispensed of her religious vows in 1973. She received her B.A. in English from Marylhurst College, and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Oregon.

She has taught at the Holy Names College, the University of Montana and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. While still a nun, she taught at the University of Montana, in Missoula, from 1967 to 1979. Since her retirement in 1985, DeFrees has held residencies at Bucknell University, Eastern Washington University, and Wichita State University. She recently retired from the faculty of the Pacific University low-residency MFA program in Forest Grove, Oregon. She has continued to teach, lecturing at the low-residency MFA program of the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts in January 2009.

DeFrees is the author of two chapbooks, two nonfiction books, and eight poetry collections, including Blue Dusk, which won the 2002 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize and a Washington Book Award. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her latest collection is Spectral Waves, Copper Canyon Press, 2006.