The Architecture of Annunciation: A Profile of Mary Szybist

To step into the poetry of Mary Szybist is to enter a space of ‘incarnadine’ and ‘Mary-blue.’ It is a world where the sacred is not something distant or dusty, but a lived, breathing, and often unsettling presence. Born in Williamsport, Pennsylvania, in 1970, Szybist grew up in the literal shadow of religious icons. Each week at the Church of the Annunciation, she looked up at Tiffany stained-glass windows that shifted with the afternoon light. It was here that her lifelong obsession with the figure of Mary—her namesake—began.

A Philosophy of Patience

For poets and poetry lovers, Szybist represents a rare kind of patience. She is not a poet of the rapid-fire collection; her first book, 'Granted,' arrived in 2003, and it would be another ten years before her landmark second book, 'Incarnadine,' took the literary world by storm, winning the National Book Award in 2013. That gap reflects her philosophy of the craft: she describes poetry as a ‘halting place’ on a larger spiritual journey, a practice of deep listening that cannot be rushed.

Fierce Fragility and Musicality

Her style is characterized by what critic Kay Ryan called a ‘lovely musical touch’ that is ‘light and exact enough to catch the weight and grind of love.’ Szybist is a master of the ‘fierce fragility.’ She often explores the permeable barrier between the spirit and the body, motherhood and childlessness. In her first book, 'Granted,' she established this tension in the poem 'In Tennessee I Found a Firefly,' where she writes:

"There is courtship, and there is hunger. I suppose there are grips from which even angels cannot fly. Even imagined ones."

Formal Fearlessness

Innovation in Szybist's work is found in her formal fearlessness. She does not just write in stanzas; she builds structures. 'Incarnadine' is famous for its experimental forms, including a poem composed as a diagrammed sentence and a concrete poem where lines radiate from a circular void like the rays of a sun. Perhaps most striking are her ‘Annunciations.’ Szybist spent time in Florence, Italy, becoming overwhelmed by how many Renaissance paintings depicted the angel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary. She began to wonder how those limitations of subject could actually unlock a profusion of meaning.

She reimagines the Annunciation in dozens of ways: as a scene from the perspective of the grass beneath the figures, or through the lens of a 21st-century scandal using text from the Starr Report. In 'Annunciation (from the grass beneath them),' she captures the uncanny intimacy of the moment:

"even the shadows her chin made / never touched but reached just passed the crushed mint, / the clover clustered between us / how cool would you say it was"

Finding the Spectacular

If you are coming to Szybist for the first time, start with the poem 'The Lushness of It.' It is a breathtaking entry point because it encapsulates her core mission: to remain curious and to refuse the boredom of the modern world. In this poem, she encourages us to give ourselves permission to ‘write out of nothing other than an interest in listening.’ It is an invitation to witness the world with the same intensity she does—one where the flash of a bird or the shadow on a wall is a potential message from the divine.

Szybist, who now teaches at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, continues to be a compass for those of us who find faith complicated and desire even more so. She reminds us that the spectacular is never behind us; it is in the very air we breathe. As she writes in the closing of 'The Troubadours, Etc.':

"Just for this evening, won’t you put me before you until I’m far enough away you can believe in me? Then try, try to come closer— my wonderful and less than."