The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize

2009

Two poems from Mike White's Making Out in the Great American Dark followed by a note on the author   Invitation   To the boy not me who drowned in the swollen river and who returned for a month of nights riding my borrowed bike I say come again come inside and get warm now we are older the river is dry let us put aside our differences Wind Not a remarkable wind. So when the bistro's patio umbrella blew suddenly free and pitched into the middle of the road, it put a stop to the afternoon. Something white and amazing was blocking the way. A waiter in a clean apron appeared, not quite certain, shielding his eyes, wary of our rumbling engines. He knelt in the hot road, making two figures in white, one leaning over the sprawled, broken shape of the other, creaturely, great-winged, and now so carefully gathered in. © Mike White is originally from Montreal and now makes his home in Salt Lake City. He received his doctorate from the University of Utah, where he continues to teach courses in literature and environmental writing. His poems have appeared in magazines including Poetry, the New Republic, the Threepenny Review, the Iowa Review, the Antioch Review, and Witness. A selection of his work will appear in the anthology, Poets of the American West (2010). 'Invitation' and 'Wind' first appeared in West Branch.