The
winner of the third annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is
Bundle
o' Tinder by
Rose
Kelleher
Ms
Kelleher, of Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA, will receive a cheque for $3,000 and
Waywiser will publish Bundle o' Tinder – her first collection –
in the fall of 2008.
It
took
the press's screening panel two months of careful reading, deliberation and discussion
to narrow the field, first to twenty semi-finalists, and then to ten finalists.
The latter (stripped of all identifying references) were then sent to the 2007
judge, Richard Wilbur. Joe Harrison rang Ms Kelleher with Mr Wilbur's decision
in March.
Our congratulations go not just to Ms Kelleher and to those
whose manuscripts reached the later stages of the contest – the finalists
and semi-finalists are listed below – but to everyone else who entered. It
is thanks to everyone who participated that the 2007 contest has been another
resounding success.
If
you would like to read poems from some of the manuscripts which made it as far
as the semi-finals, together with biographical notes on their authors, please
click on the links below.
It
is the press's hope, after the contest has been running for a while, to publish
an anthology of poems by all of the contestants who have made it as far as the
semi's.
Winner
Rose
Kelleher , Bundle o' Tinder
Semi-Finalists
and Finalists
(in
name order)
Bruce
Berger,
Snake Oil
Kimberley
Burwick, The Norway Tree
Michaela
Carter, Beauty for Ashes
Scott
Coffel, Toucans in the Arctic
Kathryn
Cowles, Eleanor, Eleanor, Not Your Real Name
Molly
Fisk, The More Difficult Beauty
Jessica
Greenbaum, Cover Songs of the Alphabet
Nick
Lantz, Asymptote
Anthony
Lacavaro, No More Magic Town
Dora
Malech, Break, Make Or
Melissa
Monroe, Frame Your Mark
Alison
Powell, I Am Your Tin Ship
Margaret
Rabb, Shoulderable Shine
Roy
Seeger,
The Boy Whose Hands Were Birds
Bradford
Gray Telford, Perfect Hurt
Matthew
Thorburn, Like Luck
Rhett
Iseman Trull, From the Glass Cage
Ian
Williams, You Know Who You Are
George
Witte, Deniability
