Professor Stewart holds degree from Dickinson College (B.A. in English and Anthropology), the Johns Hopkins University (M.F.A. in Poetics) and the University of Pennsylvania (Ph.D. in Folklore).She teaches the history of poetry, aesthetics, and the philosophy of literature, most recently at Princeton University.
Her poems have appeared in many journals including: The American Poetry Review, The Paris Review, Poetry, Tri-Quarterly, Gettysburg Review, Harper's, Georgia Review, Ploughshares, and Beloit Poetry Journal.
Most recently she was working with the composer James Primosch on a song cycle commissioned by the Chicago Symphony that was to have its premiere in the Spring of 2006. In 2005 Professor Stewart was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.