The daughter of Utah’s three-term governor Calvin L. Rampton and Lucy Beth Cardon,
Margaret “Meg” Rampton Munk grew up “in a family of Mormon pioneer ancestry.” After graduating from the University of Utah, where she first began writing poetry, Meg went to Harvard for graduate work in political science. She met Russell Munk while working in Washington, D.C., following her freshman year of college, and they were later married while in graduate school. Russ’s work took them to Japan for two years and then to the Philippines for five. Meg taught political science classes at Jesuit universities in both Tokyo and Manila. While in the Philippines, the Munks adopted their children Laura and Dan, and Meg’s focus became her family. Most of her poems dealt with her personal experiences, and several were published in
Exponent II. After returning to the United States, the Munks adopted a third child, Andrew. In 1983, Meg was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. After undergoing surgery and a year of chemotherapy she wrote the poem sequence “One Year.” The cancer proved fatal in 1986. Her collection of poetry,
So Far (1986), was published just before her death. Beginning in 1990
Dialogue inaugurated the Margaret Rampton Munk award in poetry. [adapted from
Discoveries: Two Centuries of Poems by Mormon Women, 109-10]
Included in
75 Significant Mormon Poets