Mary Ellen Solt: Poet and Professor
June 8, 1920 - June 21, 2007
Emeritus Professor Mary Ellen Solt suffered a stroke and passed away at the age of 86 on June 21, 2007 in Santa Clarita CA. Her husband, former Graduate School Dean and Emeritus Professor of History at Indiana University, Leo Solt, died in 1994, but their two daughters, Catherine Solt and Susan Solt, as well as Mary Ellen’s sister, Jean Peterson, are still living.
Professor Solt taught in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University from 1970 to 1991. She also served as the Director of the Polish Studies Center at IU. Professor Solt is best known for her concrete poetry, a form of poetry whereby the arrangement of the words on the page reflect the poem’s meaning or subject matter. One of her most well known works is Concrete Poetry: A World View, a 1968 anthology she jointly edited with now Emeritus Professor Willis Barnstone. Given its visual artistry, Professor Solt’s poetry has been exhibited at museums such as Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum and New York’s Jewish Museum. CBS included “Forsythia”, one of Professor Solt’s most popular concrete poems, in their 1974 television show Camera Three.
Professor Solt, who was studying piano while attending Iowa State Teachers College (currently the University of Northern Iowa), decided to pursue a career in poetry. In 1941, she received a bachelor’s degree in English literature from that institution and went on to earn her master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Iowa in 1948.
Article from the Indiana Daily Student:
"IU professor emeritus was pioneer in poetry"
