Congratulations to US poet Margot Armbruster who was the featured poet in the 4th June Guardian Poem of the Week for her anorexia-inspired poem Husk. Margot was shortlisted by judge Alisha Kaplan for Husk in the 2018 Hippocrates Prize international Young Poet category. The Hippocrates Young Poet Prize is supported by healthy heart charity the Cardiovascular Research Trust.
About Husk, Guardian Poem of the Week Editor Carol Rumens said: “It’s a compact, tightly structured poem which examines and interrogates the experience of anorexia nervosa, harmonising realist and figurative narratives. It reveals a serious, well-read poet.”
Margot Armbruster attends Brookfield Academy in Wisconsin. Her work has appeared in DIALOGIST, Rust + Moth, and The Best Teen Writing of 2016, among others. She is an alumna of the Adroit Journal’s Summer Mentorship Program and the Iowa Young Writers Studio; her work has been recognized by the Poetry Society of the United Kingdom, Princeton University, the National Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, and Hollins University. She reads poetry for Sooth Swarm Journal.
She said: “Husk is an exploration of anorexia’s grisly effects: along with physical decay, a mind simultaneously fixated on the body and distanced from it by the dullness of continued starvation. In this poem, I attempt to convey the intensity of my own battle with the disease using Christianity as my lens. Indeed, to the anorexic, struggling against wellness is a kind of religion, a faith, of course, ultimately based in delusion. While theists derive power and purpose from their beliefs, self-starvers reap nothing but suffering and, too often, death.“
More on the 2018 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize
___________________________________________________________________________
Notes for editors
For photos of finalists, biographies and extracts of their poems, call 07494 450805 or email hippocrates.poetry@gmail.com
The Hippocrates Initiative – winner of the 2011 Times Higher Education Award for Innovation and Excellence in the Arts – is an interdisciplinary venture that investigates the relationship between medicine and poetry.
The 2018 Hippocrates Young Poets Prize is supported by the Cardiovascular Research Trust, a healthy heart charity founded in 1996, which promotes research and education for the prevention and treatment of disorders of the heart and circulation. The charity has a particular interest in avoiding preventable heart disease through educating school students.
The 2018 Hippocrates Open Awards and Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM is a UK medical society founded in 1918, which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.Hippocrates Open Awards and Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM is a UK medical society founded in 1918, which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.The 2018 Hippocrates Open Awards and Health Professional Awards are supported by the Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine. The FPM is a UK medical society founded in 1918, which publishes the international journals the Postgraduate Medical Journal and Health Policy and Technology.
The 9th Annual Symposium on Poetry and Medicine is supported by:
- Center for Bioethics & Medical Humanities, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
- Harvard Medical School
- Hippocrates Initiative for Poetry & Medicine
- The Poetry Foundation
The Healthy Heart Charity 