After bemoaning a request for him to speak about the “Apostolate of the Pen,” Maritain expounds on the “immediate task and purpose” of Catholic writers. In 1952, the French philosopher Jacques Maritain was awarded best nonfiction book of the year for Man and the State by the “Gallery of Living Catholic Authors,” an organization based at Webster College. They were published among the leading Catholic luminaries of their time. All of them wrote moving poetry and deft prose.

In my new book, The Habit of Poetry, I feature six talented women in particular: Sister Mary Madeleva Wolff, Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit (Jessica Powers), Sister Mary Bernetta Quinn, Sister Mary Gilbert (Madeline DeFrees), Sister Maura Eichner and Sister Mary Francis.

In mid-century America, nuns and sisters were writing poems, and publishing them in the nation’s finest publications. In reality, the evidence for the literary success of Catholic women was among his own words-in the very pages of America.įor the past few years, I have been writing about something of a minor literary renaissance.

Corbett’s conclusion was clear: “if there is any vigorous creative activity taking place on our Catholic campuses, it is all taking place at our smaller liberal-arts colleges for girls.” In the spirit of charity, I take Corbett’s incredulity to be related to size rather than gender the women’s colleges had smaller populations, fewer faculty and staff, and a fraction of the endowments and resources of the larger Catholic schools. Save for one school, all Catholic students who received awards in the competition attended “ girls schools taught by nuns.”Ĭorbett’s use of italics was meant to capture incredulity: There was not “a single winner from a Jesuit school or from any of the larger all-male or coeducational Catholic universities,” a trend that continued from the previous year’s Atlantic contest. Students from Catholic colleges won almost half of the top spots in the fiction, poetry and essay categories. He observed that “most of the new creative writing and some of the best of it is coming from our campuses-from faculty members and students on those campuses.” Corbett pointed to the literary contest for college students conducted by The Atlantic magazine in 1955-56.

Corbett-a former Marine turned professor of rhetoric at Creighton University-was flummoxed.

Room Six by Ember Davis