The North Carolina Writers’ Network inducted a native east Texan poet into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame Sunday.

Betty Adcock, a Guggenheim fellow (among other honors), former teacher at NC State, Meredith, Duke and the low residency Warren Wilson MFA Program for Writers and author of six books, grew up on a small, Texan farm reminiscent of North Carolina’s wooded landscape. She arrived in North Carolina at 18, after marrying her husband, Don Adcock, an accomplished jazz and flute musician, who also served as the university’s band director for 22 years.

“[The induction] was kind of a capstone to the fact that North Carolina is very accepting of writers, and it turned me into a North Carolinian,” Adcock said, adding it was one of the greatest achievements of her career.

A self-taught poet, Adcock said she read a lot in place of formal schooling to become the poet she is today.

“I don’t think anybody learns how to write except by reading,” Adcock said. “But you need to read something besides poetry because you need to know the world before you can write about it well. As to influences, poetry is like a river; some of it sticks with you, and you keep what sticks and use it.”

Her mother, an English literature teacher, read poetry to Adcock before passing away when Adcock turned 6. She did not know much about her mother aside from the papers she read of hers many years later, which showed how much she loved poetry, according to Adcock.

Poetic inspiration came from her mother, a “mouse-chewed volume of John Keats” and from her great grandfather, in addition to a long line of poets before her.

“It was just something I did and stuck in a drawer,” Adcock said.

Before becoming a famous poet, Adcock worked in the advertising industry for 11 years to earn a living while doing poetry on the side at night, according to her.

“My husband adored poetry, and he was all for me being the poet I wanted to be,” Adcock said. “That was rare in those days because I was married in 1957.” 

NC State’s literary magazine and the Southern Poetry Review published her earliest works, according to Adcock. She heard about the review from her former fiction writing professor at NC State, Guy Owen, and later become an associate editor of the review. After many years, the magazine moved to UNC-Charlotte.

“I think NC State did not know what they had,” Adcock said. “He looked for good poetry, and he found it.”

A style all her own.

Loss runs as a common theme through Adcock’s poetry, according to her.

“It’s not simply about death, it’s the loss of the Earth, the loss of things due to technology,” Adcock said.

However, Adcock said she could not describe a common style to her poetry, likening it more to “jazz improv.”

“She changes rhyme and rhythm in the middle of a poem, and this innovative approach distinguishes her from other writers,” said Charles Fiore, communication director for the NC Writers’ Network.

According to Adcock, sometimes she will write a formal sonnet, while at other times she’ll write narrative poems since the poems themselves determine the form.

“I simply write what I have to write,” Adcock said. However, she said she has noticed a common “intensity of language” in her writing, which makes her readers get a clear sense of where the poem takes place.

Not only does she write, but she also shared her expertise with her students of her various teaching positions.

“I love teaching poetry because I am teaching people as much how to read as how to write,” Adcock said. “It’s very exciting to find gifted students and watching people blossom.”

Teaching poetry also gave her the chance to give to others an opportunity she lacked when growing up – the chance to take a poetry course herself, Adcock said.

“It’s really amazing what Betty has accomplished,” Fiore said. “She’s one of those rare double threats.”