News Article

Tod Marshall, poet and professor, at a recent
basketball game.  Photo by Amy Sinisterra.

Tod Marshall, assistant English professor at Gonzaga University, has received an Artist Trust/Washington State Arts Commission Fellowship in order to work on a new, unpublished collection of poetry. The $6,000 award recognizes an artist's creative excellence and accomplishment, professional achievement and continuing dedication to his or her artistic discipline.

"I am very happy and honored to be chosen by the Artist Trust for a fellowship. I know that the awards are competitive,"said Marshall, who had competed previously for the fellowship. "Being chosen as a fellow this year reinforces the old adage about hard work paying off."

Marshall came to Gonzaga in 1999 after earning his Ph.D. from the University of Kansas. "I enjoy teaching poetry and poetics — all periods." His first book of poems, "Dare Say," (University of Georgia Press, 2002), was well received. He describes his collection of new poems, untitled as yet, as "strange work, frequently yoking together very different subjects – Martin Luther King, Jr., Evel Knievel, Thomas Aquinas, and Kentucky Fried Chicken, to name a few; the only constant seems to be my revisioning of the myth of Daedelus and Icarus."

In 2003, Marshall was selected as the Wilson Visiting Poet at Albion College in Albion, Mich., a distinction previously given to poets Gwendolyn Brooks, Gary Snyder, Stephen Spender and Galway Kinnell. In 2005, he edited "Range of Voices" (Eastern Washington University Press), an anthology of poetry written by the poets with whom he conducted interviews. Marshall's work is widely published.

Out of nine literary fellowships awarded last week by the Artist Trust, three honored Spokane County writers, including Marshall, Laurie Lamon of Whitworth College and Sam Ligon of Eastern Washington University.

The Artist Trust is a nonprofit organization created to support the arts within Washington state. Artist Trust Fellowships are awarded in two-year cycles: Music, Media, Literature and Crafts disciplines are awarded in odd-numbered years. Dance, Design, Theater and Visual Arts Fellowships are awarded in even-numbered years. A selection panel of three artists and arts professionals in each discipline choose the Fellowship recipients.

Fellowship recipients must present a Meet the Artist event to a community that has little or no access to the artist and their work. Marshall said he has yet to decide where and when that event will take place.

For more information, please contact Tod Marshall, assistant professor of English at Gonzaga at (509) 323-6681 or via e-mail at marshall@gonzaga.edu.