7th Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize

Judge: Mark Strand

The winner of the seventh Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize was Chris Andrews’s Lime Green Chair.

Mr Andrews, of Dulwich Hill, New South Wales, Australia, received a cheque for $3,000 and Waywiser will publish Lime Green Chair – his second collection of poems – on 19 November 2012, when Mr Andrews will read alongside the 2011 judge at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

It took the press’s screening panel two months of careful reading, deliberation and discussion to narrow the field to the group of finalists which, stripped of all identifying reference, was then sent to the 2011 judge, Mark Strand. Waywiser’s Senior American Editor, Joe Harrison, rang Mr Andrews with Mr Strand’s decision in April.

Our congratulations go not just to Chris Andrews 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 2011 contest has been another resounding success.

Winner

Chris Andrews, Lime Green Chair

Nominees

(in name order)

Andrea Carter Brown, True Confessions of a Foot Fetishist

Lesley Dauer, Carnival Life

Anthony Deaton, Voice, Compass, Clay

Katy Didden, Avalanche

Joseph Fasano, Fugue for Other Hands

Ezra Feldman, The Body as One

Alex Gang, The Speaker of These Poems is Alex Gang

Ani Gjika, Bread on Running Waters

Amy Greacen, A Modern Herbal

Carrie Green, Double Brilliance

John Hennessy, Icons in the Church of Unrest

Lesley Jenike, Genius of the Place

Youna Kwak, The Physical Heart

David Livewell, Shackamaxon

Philip Morre, Suburban Perseids

Alison Powell, On The Desire to Levitate

Bill Rasmovicz, Gross Ardor

Phillip Sterling, Some Play of Light

John Wedgwood Clarke, Ghost Pot

John Whalen, Home for the Reenactment

Philip White, Fire Chorus

Ivan Young, Smell of Salt, Ghost of Rain