Madeline DeFrees
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Madeline DeFrees (born Ontario, Oregon, 1919) is an American poet 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, (see Marylhurst University) 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. Since her retirement in 1985, DeFrees has held residencies at Bucknell University, Eastern Washington University, and Wichita State University. She currently teaches in the Pacific University low-residency MFA program in Forest Grove, Oregon.
DeFrees is the author of two chapbooks, two nonfiction books, and eight poetry collections, including Blue Dusk (Copper Canyon, 2001), 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.
