Laura Gilpin

Laura Gilpin grew up in Indiana and earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MFA from Columbia University.
 
Gilpin is the author of two poetry collections: The Weight of the Soul (Franklin Street Press, 2008) and The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe (Doubleday, 1977), which was selected by William Stafford as the winner of the 1976 Walt Whitman Award. Of the collection, Stafford wrote,

The control, pace, cumulative effect, frequent rockets of surprise in The Hocus-Pocus of the Universe make it a very appealing and admirable book. I like the sense of being accompanied page after page by the worthy company of an author who can have the audacity to rely on lines that are just right . . .”

The recipient of a 1981 grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, Gilpin became a registered nurse that same year. Although she continued to write, her second collection of poems was published posthumously.
 
Gilpin died on February 15, 2007, at her home in Fairhope, Alabama, after a diagnosis of multiple glioblastomas.