This year The Word Works
Washington Prize submissions have come from 47 of the United States, a record
for us, and it seemed like a good time to celebrate the steady progress of The
Word Works from regional to national organization. In 1981, The Word Works led
by Deirdra
Baldwin, founding president, while intent on honoring our city of origin
(Washington, DC), made a conscious decision to move from a regional to national
literary organization.
This was done in 1981
through the establishment of an annual literary competition named The
Washington Prize. Initially The Washington Prize operated for seven years as a
single-poem contest with an award of $1,000 and publication of the winning poem
in a full-page ad in the Poets & Writers newsletter (precursor to the Poets & Writers Magazine).
The first prize was fully
funded by a grant from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. When Word Works
began planning for this competition, no other prizes offering such a
substantial monetary award existed. However, much to Karren Alenier’s surprise was
a call for the first Billee Murray Denny Award, which also offered $1,000 for a
single poem but no promise of publication. Suffice it to say, Alenier entered
the Denny Award and won that prize.
The list of poets (including
the state where these poets lived at the time of the award) winning The
Washington Prize as a single poem contest is:
1981 Barbara Goldberg,
Maryland
1982 Susan Gubernat, New
York
1983 Judith Steinbergh,
Massachusetts
1984 Lindsay Knowlton, Massachusetts
1985 Enid Shomer, Florida
1986 Renée Ashley, New
Jersey
1987 Lisa Ress, Virginia
In 1986, Alenier became the
second president of The Word Works during a time when Word Works publications
had slowed down. Calling a meeting of the Board of Directors and key volunteers,
Alenier, along with J.H. Beall, Barbara Goldberg, Betty Parry, and Robert
Sargent helped move The Washington Prize into its next phase. In 1987, Word
Works began its Washington Prize imprint by inviting Enid Shomer to submit a
book-length manuscript featuring her winning poem “Stalking the Florida
Panther.” Also in 1987, we put out a call in Poets & Writers Magazine for book-length manuscripts that would
win $1,000 and book publication. The Washington Prize imprint list at this time
includes (with state where the poet lived at the time of the award):
1987 Enid Shomer of Florida
for Stalking the Florida Panther
1987 Christopher Bursk of
Pennsylvania for The Way Water Rubs Stone
1989 John Bradley of
Illinois for Love-In-Idleness
1990 Barbara Moore of
New York for Farewell to the Body
1991 Elaine Magarrell
of Washington, DC for Blameless Lives
1992 Nancy White of New
York for Sun, Moon, Salt
1993 Fred Marchant of
Massachusetts for Tipping Point
1994 Jay Rogoff for of
New York The Cutoff
1995 Linda Lee Harper
of Georgia for Toward Desire
1996 George Young of
Colorado for Spinoza's Mouse
1997 Ann Rae Jonas of
Massachusetts for A Diamond Is Hard But Not Tough
1998 Nathalie F.
Anderson of Pennsylvania for Following Fred Astaire
1999 Peter Blair of Virginia
for Last Heat
2000 Charlotte Gould
Warren of Washington for Gandhi's Lap
2001 Michael Atkinson
of New York for One Hundred Children Waiting for a Train
2002 Miles Waggener of
Arizona for Phoenix Suites
2003 Ron Mohring of
Pennsylvania for Survivable World
2004 Carrie Bennett of
Virginia for Biography of Water
2005 Richard Lyons of
Tennessee for Fleur Carnivore
2006 John Surowiecki of
Connecticut for The Hat City after Men Stopped Wearing Hats
2007 Prartho Sereno of
California for Call from Paris
2008 Richard Carr of
Minnesota for Ace
2009 Frannie Lindsay of
Massachusetts for Mayweed
2010 Brad Richard of Louisiana
for Motion Studies
2011 Mike White of
Utah for How to Make a Bird with Two Hands
2012 B. K. Fischer of
New York for St. Rage's Vault
2013 Molly Bashaw of Vermont/Germany
for The Whole Field Still Moving Inside It
2014 Jamison Crabtree of
Nevada for rel[am]ent
2015 Barbara Duffey of South Dakota for Simple
Machines
Statistically
in 35 years, The Washington Prize has been awarded to 35 poets (20 women and 15
men), living or based at the time of the award, in 21 states or the District of
Columbia. This represents 44 percent of the 50 United States and the District
of Columbia. States with more than one Washington Prize winner include New York
(6), Massachusetts (5), Pennsylvania (3), and Virginia (3). We attribute this
preponderance of East Coast winners to our advertising in Poets &
Writers Magazine, but as we have expanded our base of operation (our
current president Nancy White lives in upstate New York, vice-president Rebecca
Kutzer-Rice lives in Brooklyn, other Board members live in Maryland and
Virginia) and purview (annually since 2009 we have exhibited at the Association
of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Book fair, we have been able to attract
submissions from other regional areas of the US.
The
Washington Prize is open to Canadian poets writing in English. To date, we have
awarded one prize to Canadian Mike White who lives and teaches in Utah. The
Prize has always been open to Americans living abroad. In 2013, we awarded
Molly Bashaw, who maintains her American anchor in Vermont, but lives in
Germany. Still, we urge our authors to stay connected to The Word Works by
giving readings in our venues, report on their successes, and volunteer for our
projects, which includes reading for The Washington Prize.
While
we continue to work on reaching out to North American writers writing in
English, we believe we have been faithful to our goal of publishing outstanding
contemporary poetry while moving from a regional publishing house sponsoring
public literary programs to one that is robustly national.
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