Barbara Helfgott Hyett

Barbara Helfgott Hyett began writing in 1978 and published her first book, In Evidence: Poems of the Liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps (University of Pittsburgh Press), in 1986. The book, which was based on interviews with United States GIs, was selected as a Booklist Editor’s Choice. Helfgott Hyett published widely in the years that followed, and her 1996 collection, The Tracks We Leave: Poems on Endangered Wildlife of North America (University of Illinois Press), was a pioneer in the genre of ecopoetry. She is also the author of the books Come Thunder (Lily Poetry Review Books, 2022), Rift (University of Arkansas Press, 2008),The Double Reckoning of Christopher Columbus (University of Illinois Press, 1992), and Natural Law (Northland Press of Winona, 1989).

Helfgott Hyett has twice received the New England Poetry Club’s Gertrude Warren Prize, and she was a finalist for the Academy of American Poets’s Walt Whitman Prize and the Yale Younger Poets Prize. She has received support from numerous fellowships, including from the National Endowment for the Arts, Yaddo, and others. She served as a judge for the Elie Wiesel Foundation’s Prize in Ethics Contest for over 20 years. 

Helfgott Hyett has taught at schools and colleges in the Boston area, and cofounded the Writer’s Room of Boston. Her signature workshop, PoemWorks, was named one of the best places for workshops by the Boston Globe in 2005, and the vibrant community she fostered continues to thrive today.