Anne Carson, Kathleen Graber, Terrance Hayes, Kay Ryan and C.D. Wright are the 2010 Poetry Finalists for the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Award. The announcement was made by esteemed poet and former NBCC Finalist Carolyn Forche in a ceremony at the Jerome L. Greene Performance Center in New York City on January 22, 2011.
The five honorees represent a spectrum from relatively new poets to established writers, converging from the west coast, to the east and encompassing the south and Canada. What these poets have in common is a unique voice recognized for its craft and freshness.
Anne Carson: Nox. (New Directions) ISBN 978-0-8112-1870-2
This is Carson’s first book of poetry in five years, and is a unique visual as well as reading experience. Nox is a book-in-a-box that opens as an accordion fold-out to memorialize the sudden loss of the poet’s brother, Michael. Faded family photos, excerpts of letters, sketches and memorabilia are inserted among her poetic tributes.
Carson, a Toronto-born Classics scholar, is known for her wide range of writing including essays and translations with an emphasis on classical mythology. According to one literary biography, Carson’s work and study emerged from the influence of a high school teacher who taught her Greek during her lunch hours. Carson also regards herself as a visual artist, and this predilection is aptly represented in Nox. In this latest collection, she has interpreted “Poem 101” by Catullus as a lens for comprehending her own grief.
Her introduction to publication came in 1986 with Eros the Bittersweet, a treatise on Eros published by Princeton and hailed as a singularly original piece of writing. Almost a decade later, she revived reader interest with two volumes of poetry (Plainwater, Random House and Glass, Irony and God, New Directions). These led to a Guggenheim Fellowship and a grant from the MacArthur Foundation. Her 2002 translation of Sappho, If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (Random House) maintains its standing as a comprehensive collection of this classical poets’ elusive fragments.
Kathleen Graber: The Eternal City (Princeton University Press) ISBN13: 978-0-691-14610-2
Graber’s The Eternal City is her second book of poems, following her debut collection, Correspondence. This title was selected by Paul Muldoon to revive the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets and has received critical praise at Princeton and in literary journals. In a Publishers Weekly review, critic Craig Teischer says of the poet: “She manages to do a scholar's work in these poems without the alienating haughtiness of many scholars. And despite their learned-ness, these are poems anyone could love.”
In another review, critic Meghan O’Rourke says of The Eternal City, “The effect is of eavesdropping on the neurotic yet rigorous mind of an admired friend--the kind of unpretentious person who genuinely turns to books for solace.”
Graber, who teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Virginia Commonwealth, wrote her first poem at the age of 35 during a writing workshop. Correspondence was published in 2005 and won the Saturnalia Books Poetry Prize. Graber’s poetic promise was recognized by a number of fellowships and awards including the Amy Lowell Traveling Scholarship, which allowed her to write The Eternal City.
Terrance Hayes: Lighthead (Penguin Poets) ISBN 978-0-14-311696-7 I
Lighthead is the fourth book in a decade for Terrance Hayes, whose reputation as a solid poet continues to grow amid accolades and awards. This title was the recipient of the National Book Award for poetry, and his previous work, Hip Logic won the 2001 National Poetry Series. Hayes has also been honored with a Pushcart Prize and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
At just 40 years of age, Hayes is building a following that includes Cornelius Eady, who alerts readers to his writing: “First you'll marvel at his skill, his near-perfect pitch, his disarming humor, his brilliant turns of phrase. Then you'll notice the grace, the tenderness, the unblinking truth-telling just beneath his lines, the open and generous way he takes in our world."
Hayes, a native of South Carolina and creative writing professor at Carnegie Mellon, uses Lighthead as a tool for re-visioning memory, similar to Wind in a Box, his 2006 poetry collection, also from Penguin.
Kay Ryan: The Best of It (Grove) ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-1914-8
California poet, professor and two-term Poet Laureate of the U.S., Kay Ryan was acknowledged as a poetry world “outsider” prior to her national appointment. But it wasn’t for lack of productivity or awards. Like many of the finalists in this year’s poetry competition, Ryan has received a Guggenheim among other fellowships, and was a recipient of the coveted Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize awarded by The Poetry Foundation in 2004.
Ryan has eight poetry collections bearing her name, the first of which came out in 1983 (Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends, (Taylor Street Press). She spoke of her resistance to writing poetry in a New York Times article, shortly after being named poet laureate.
“I so didn’t want to be a poet," said Ryan. “I came from sort of a self-contained people who didn’t believe in public exposure, and public investigation of the heart was rather repugnant to me.” She overcame that reticence but it was twenty years before her work received national recognition.
Her most recent collection and NBCC finalist was published in 2010 and contains the thin lines and accessible language that marks her poetry.
C.D. Wright: One With Others: [a little book of her days] (Copper Canyon) ISBN: 978-1-55659-324-6
C.D. Wright’s poetry has been designated as a “school of one,” and the poet has echoed the varying tones of her writing by saying, “I’m country but sophisticated. I’m particular and concrete, but I’m probing another plane…”
Wright has produced a dozen poetry and prose books, including an ekphrastic look at inmates called One Big Self: Prisoners of Louisiana (Copper Canyon), one of three collaborations with photographer Deborah Luster. She has earned her recognition in the poetry universe and received a quartet of fellowships (Guggenheim, MacArthur, Lannan, National Endowment for the Arts) along with the Griffin Trust Poetry Award. Aside from these honors, this Arkansas native’s name and mention of her work is a familiar hum among contemporary poets.
The daughter of a judge and a court reporter, Wright’s poetry often delves into an investigative direction. One With Others follows this path as the poet returns to the Ozarks and finds the voices of those whose daily lives were infiltrated with the venom of racism.
About the National Book Critics Circle
The National Book Critics Circle was established in 1974 and is tailored after the Algonquin Round Table meetings of Alexander Woollcott, Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, Charlie McArthur and Art Samuels. Its objective is to extend that historic era of conversation and promote lively exchange and stimulating reviews of literature published in the English language.
The group’s blog, Critical Mass will highlight each of the books selected as a finalist in its upcoming "30 Books in 30 Days" series. Finalists for the 2010 NBCC Award will read from their work on February 4 at the NYC New School, and the winners will be celebrated on March 10 with an Awards Ceremony at the same location.
For more information and sources:
Read more about the National Book Critics Circle at its website.
Here’s the full biography of Kay Ryan at the Poetry Foundation.
Read Patricia Cohen’s 2007 coverage of Kay Ryan at the New York Times.
Cornelius Eady’s remarks about Terrance Hayes are at Poets.org.
Reviews of Kathleen Graber’s The Eternal City are at Princeton University Press.
The Poetry Foundation contains an excellent biography of Anne Carson.
Read the full reference to C.D. Wright at The Poetry Foundation.
Take a look at C.D. Wright’s One Big Self and One With Others.
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