Gjertrud Schnackenberg

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Gjertrud Schnackenberg (born 1953) is an award-winning American poet.

She was born to Lutheran parents of Norwegian descent in Tacoma, Washington. As a child, Gjertrud was particularly close with her father, and her close relationship with him during her early years had a profound impact on her. Not long after beginning college, she was devastated by his premature death, but her father's effect on her continued to be reflected in Schnackenberg's poetry for years to come. In 1975, she received her bachelor's degree in English from Mount Holyoke College.

According to the August 14, 2000 Publishers Weekly, "Schnackenberg's elegant rhymes and ornate constructions made her a leading light of the 1980s movement called New Formalism, which emphasized rhyme, meter and story line." Without sounding pious, she often incorporates themes of God, creation, evil, and salvation into her works, along with ancient history, symbols, and theology to allude to her religious beliefs in her poems. She not only examines the nature of God, but also his sympathetic and gracious view towards a fallen and hurting human race.

The Throne of Labdacus, one of Schnackenberg's five books of poetry, focuses on the myth of Oedipus and the stories of ancient Greece. In A Gilded Lapse of Time, she has a section devoted to the life, poetry, and death of Dante. As a young poet, she would often read Dante's works when she experienced writers block.

Schnackenberg has been awarded the Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Berlin Prize from the American Academy in Berlin and the Rome Prize in Creative Literature from the American Academy in Rome, as well as fellowships from the National Endowments for the Arts, The Radcliffe Institute, and The Guggenheim Foundation. Today, she travels around the world reading her poetry in public, university, and conference settings.

Her first marriage, to poet Paul Smyth, ended in divorce. She was then married to the American philosopher Robert Nozick, until his death in 2002.