[New-Poetry] 2009 Poets' Prize

[Rsgwynn1 at cs.com]

Ellen Bryant Voigt Wins 2009 Poets' Prize

Ellen Bryant Voigt is the winner of the 2009 Poets' Prize of $3000. The 
prize is funded by and voted on by a committee of 22 American poets. Because of 
its complex nominating and voting procedures, the prize is awarded over a 
year after most other major awards are announced; this year books published 
in 2007 were eligible.

Voigt won for Messenger: Selected Poems 1976-2006, published by W. W. 
Norton. In selecting Voigt's book, the prize committee considered over thirty 
books. The finalists were Marvin Bell for Mars Being Red (Copper Canyon), Kelly 
Cherry for Hazard and Prospect (LSU Press), and Mark Jarman for Epistles 
(Sarabande).

Born in Virginia, Voigt was educated at Converse College and the University 
of Iowa. She has taught at M.I.T and Goddard College, and was the founder 
of the Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, where she has taught 
since 1981. She served as Poet Laureate of Vermont from 1999 to 2003. She is 
the author of seven collections of poetry and The Flexible Lyric, a 
collection of critical essays. She currently resides in Cabot, Vermont.

The Poets' Prize was established in 1988 by Frederick Morgan, Robert 
McDowell, and Louis Simpson. The first winner was Julia Randall, and the most 
recent was A. E. Stallings. The motto of the Poets' Prize is "We believe that 
there is no greater honor than to be awarded a prize by a jury of one's 
peers."

The current chair of the Poets' Prize Committee, R. S. Gwynn, will preside 
at the award ceremony, which will take place at the Nicholas Roerich Museum 
at 319 West 107th Street in New York City at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, May 21, 
2009. The event is free and open to the public and will include readings of 
poems by the honoree and finalists with a reception following. Copies of 
Messenger will be available for purchase at the event.

The link below lists all past winners:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poets'_Prize 

    


    
    



 
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