May Swenson

       May Swenson, 1965.
       Photo by L.H. Clark.

The May Swenson Poetry Award


This annual competition, named for May Swenson, honors her as one of America's most provocative and vital writers. In John Hollander's words, she was "one of our few unquestionably major poets." During her long career, May was loved and praised by writers from virtually every school of American poetry. She left a legacy of fifty years of writing when she died in 1989. She is buried in Logan, Utah, her hometown.

Judge for the 2009/2010 competition will be



      Grace Schulman

       Grace Schulman

Grace Schulman

An icon of the literary scene, distinguished poet Grace Schulman is acclaimed for her searching, highly original, lyric poetry, as well as for her teaching and her influential tenure as the poetry editor at The Nation, (1971-2006). Harold Bloom calls her "one of the permanent poets of her generation." Richard Howard says, "she is a torch."

Grace Schulman's latest poetry collection is The Broken String (Houghton Mifflin, 2007 and Mariner paperback, 2008). She is the author of six books of poems, including Days of Wonder: New and Selected Poems (2002), The Paintings of Our Lives (2002), For That Day Only (1994) Hemispheres (1986) and Burn Down the Icons (1976).

Among her honors are the Aiken Taylor Award for poetry, the Delmore Schwartz Memorial Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and New York University's Distinguished Alumni Award. Her poems have received three Pushcart prizes, and Days of Wonder, a finalist for the Phi Beta Kappa Award, was selected by Library Journal as one of the best poetry books of 2002. Editor of The Poems of Marianne Moore (Viking, 2003), she is Distinguished Professor of English at Baruch College, CUNY. Her poems, essays, and translations have appeared widely in journals, here and abroad. Schulman is former director of the Poetry Center, (1974-84,) and former poetry editor of The Nation, (1971-2006). She lives in New York City and in East Hampton with her husband, Jerome.

Guidelines for the 2010 Swenson Award Competition

  1. Submitted collections must be original poetry in English, 50 to 100 pages

  2. No restrictions on form or subject

  3. Submit one copy of the manuscript

  4. Name/address on cover sheet only

  5. $25 reading fee (includes copy of winning book)

  6. Postmark deadline September 30

  7. SASE for announcement of winner

  8. Manuscript will not be returned

  9. Judge reserves the right to declare no winner in any given year

The winning manuscript receives a $1000 award, publication, and royalties. Address your entry to:

    May Swenson Poetry Award
    Utah State University Press
    7800 Old Main Hill
    Logan UT 84322-7800

Winner of the 2009 Swenson Poetry Award


Tomorrow's Living Room

by Jason Whitmarsh

selected by Billy Collins

 

Jason Whitmarsh earned his B.A. in mathematics from the University of Chicago and an M.F.A. in poetry from the University of Washington, where he was awarded a Klepser Fellowship and an Academy of American Poets Prize. His poems have appeared in many literary journals, including Yale Review, Harvard Review, Ploughshares, and Fence. He lives in Seattle with his wife and children. Tomorrow's Living Room is his first full-length collection.

Tomorrow's Living Room will be published in summer 2009.

With so many poets working the American idiom these days, it is a wonder to find one with an original voice, but Jason Whitmarsh has carved out a verbal territory for himself unlike anyone else's. It is the kind of voice that whistles for our attention.
—Billy Collins

Previous May Swenson Poetry Award Winners

2008
Mrs. Ramsay's Knee
poems by Idris Anderson
foreword by Harold Bloom

2007
Neck of the World
poems by F. Daniel Rzicznek
foreword by Alice Quinn

2006
Haywire
poems by George Bilgere
foreword by Edward Field

2005
The Beautiful Lesson of the I
poems by Frances Brent
Foreword by Rachel Hadas

2004
Where She Always Was
poems by Frannie Lindsay
Foreword by J. D. McClatchy

2003
She Took Off Her Wings and Shoes
poems by Suzette Marie Bishop
Foreword by Alicia Ostriker

2002
The Owl Question
poems by Faith Shearin
Foreword by Mark Doty

2001
The Borgo of the Holy Ghost
poems by Stephen McLeod
Foreword by Richard Howard

2000
All That Divides Us
poems by Elinor Benedict
Foreword by Maxine Kumin

1999
Necessary Light
poems by Patricia Fargnoli
Foreword by Mary Oliver

1998
The Hammered Dulcimer
poems by Lisa Williams
Foreword by John Hollander

1997
Plato's Breath
poems by Randall R. Freisinger
Foreword by Herbert Leibowitz

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