Mary A. Pryor

The world lost a wonderfully unique voice with the death of Mary A. Pryor at her home in Moorhead on Friday, March 13.Mary Anne Pryor was born February 8, 1926 to John Clinton Pryor and Susan Balzer Pryor in Demorest, Georgia. She grew up in Gilbertville, Massachusetts and went on to earn her BA in English from Grinnell College in Iowa, and her Master's degree in nursing from the Yale School of Nursing in 1951. For two years she was a part-time student at the Yale University School of Drama, where one of her three-act plays, Third Floor West, was given as a major production in 1952. From 1951-59 she worked as a staff nurse in operating rooms and in public health posts in New Haven, Connecticut, Mount Vernon, New York, New York City, and Lincoln, Nebraska, where she also taught operating room techniques at the Lincoln General Hospital School of Nursing. Returning to school at the University of Nebraska, she earned an MA and PhD in English, and accepted a full-time position in the English department of Moorhead State College in 1965, where she was promoted to professor in 1972 and chaired the department from 1982-85. Aside from being a well respected and popular teacher, Mary was an accomplished poet, publishing work in several magazines and in a number of poetry chapbooks, as well as a collection entitled On Occasion: Selected Poems, 1968-1992. Her carefully observed and meticulously crafted poems display her concern for birds, plants, weather and people, often when they are behaving foolishly.Mary retired from Moorhead State in 1992, though not from writing poetry, which, for her, was like teaching—a continuing process of growth and discovery. "Since grade school," she once responded in a newspaper interview, "I have written poetry. . . my subject, whatever comes along, especially anything that seems odd or out of sync. " Her poetic talents, her wit, and her acute powers of observation were also well known to readers of the Forum's editorial pages."I write to survive—and for the joy of it," Mary once said. As she wrote in "If the News," one of her best known poems: "If the news flashed / that within the next eight hours / the sun would explode / one might/ go into hysterics / run for the nearest cathedral / organize an orgy—/ but first I should finish the poem."