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Portland poet Mary Szybist won a National Book Award for her poetry Wednesday night.

(Joni Kabana)

a Portland poet who teaches at Lewis & Clark College, won the National Book Award for poetry Wednesday in New York. Szybist won for "Incarnadine," and gave an emotional speech that concluded with thanks to her late mother, "who made me."

George Packer won the nonfiction award for "The Unwinding" and James McBride won the fiction award for "The Good Lord Bird." Cynthia Kadohata won in young people's literature for "The Thing About Luck."

Szybist's award comes 50 years after another Lewis & Clark professor, William Stafford, won the National Book Award for poetry for "Traveling Through the Dark."

The National Book Awards are given annually to American authors and are considered the most prestigious award in American letters along with the Pulitzer Prize. Winners are chosen by a five-member committee of authors, booksellers and others in the publishing community. Winners receive $10,000.

Szybist hugged the head of the poetry judging committee, Nikky Finney, and started her acceptance speech by paraphrasing a comment by Maya Angelou, "whether I deserve it or not." She talked about sometimes finding herself "in a dark place" where she loses "all taste for poetry" before realizing "how much it can do."

Poetry "is what some describe as soul-making; I count myself among them," she said. "Speaking differently is what I aspire to."

She also thanked the other finalists, her brother Mark Szybist, Portland poet Michele Glazer, and her husband, Jerry Harp, who also teaches at Lewis & Clark.

Earlier coverage:

being a National Book Award finalist.

Szybist did a

about "Incarnadine."

-- Jeff Baker