Whiting Award Winners
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
For me, to be a feminist is to answer the question “Are women human?” with a yes. It is not about whether women are better than, worse than or identical with men. And it’s certainly not about trading personal liberty – abortion, divorce, sexual self-expression—for social protection as wives and mothers, as pro-life feminists propose. It’s about justice, fairness and access to the broad range of human experience. It’s about women consulting their own well-being and being judged as individuals rather than as members of a class with one personality, one social function, one road to happiness. It’s about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, “the family,” men.
“What do I want you to do? You really want to know? I’ll tell you. Just look me in the eye and tell me one thing. Just do it. Tell me whether you and Cynthia have made love. Tell me. Go on.”
“The answer is no.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“I believe you,” she said quietly, and for a moment Richard thought it was over until she turned around and screamed at him, “THEN WHY DON’T YOU MAKE LOVE WITH ME?”
We do not mean to complain. We know how it is.
In older, even sadder cultures the worst possible sorts
have been playing hot and cold with people’s lives
for much longer. Like Perrow says,
We’ll all have baboon hearts one of these days.
We wintered with ample fuel and real tomatoes.
We were allowed to roam, sniffing and chewing
at the tufted crust. We were let to breathe.
That is, we respirated. Now the soft clocks
have gorged themselves on our time. Yet
as our hair blanches and comes out
in hanks, we can tell it is nearly spring –
the students shed their black coats
on the green; we begin to see shade.
Lo, this is the breastbone’s embraceable light.
We are here. Still breathing and constellated.
A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet.
Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches.
Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she hit at the tree.
The tree whisked and whisked with its leafy branches.
The woman kicked and bit screaming, kill me kill me or I’ll kill you!
The statue’s resting place looked pretty good. All she really had to do was get him deep enough so the dogs didn’t dig him up before the sale. After her exertions over his tomb, the hollow Saint Joseph seemed to weigh nothing in her hand. He seemed to float in space before her eyes. She set him down on his back in the hole, but found that she couldn’t shovel the dirt on top of him, not right on his face like that. She turned him face-down, but that seemed worse. When she picked him up again, half-frozen dirt had sifted into his open base. You could see it through the translucent, cream-colored skin: Saint Joseph turning brown as he filled up with soil.
You know it too! … The charm of funerals in the rain,
the special effects men with their hoses well aimed,
huge drops exploding on
classically beautiful
black umbrellas.
You know them, -
the houses like fat vegetables
stuffed with old lace, ceramics, silverware, dust –
secure as bank vaults.
Who will inherit?
Vittorio is dining with
that Chinese actress again…
Will the kingdom be divided?
Who will keep
the chandeliers in good repair
and tend the lists of public enemies?
For me, to be a feminist is to answer the question “Are women human?” with a yes. It is not about whether women are better than, worse than or identical with men. And it’s certainly not about trading personal liberty – abortion, divorce, sexual self-expression—for social protection as wives and mothers, as pro-life feminists propose. It’s about justice, fairness and access to the broad range of human experience. It’s about women consulting their own well-being and being judged as individuals rather than as members of a class with one personality, one social function, one road to happiness. It’s about women having intrinsic value as persons rather than contingent value as a means to an end for others: fetuses, children, “the family,” men.
“What do I want you to do? You really want to know? I’ll tell you. Just look me in the eye and tell me one thing. Just do it. Tell me whether you and Cynthia have made love. Tell me. Go on.”
“The answer is no.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“I believe you,” she said quietly, and for a moment Richard thought it was over until she turned around and screamed at him, “THEN WHY DON’T YOU MAKE LOVE WITH ME?”
We do not mean to complain. We know how it is.
In older, even sadder cultures the worst possible sorts
have been playing hot and cold with people’s lives
for much longer. Like Perrow says,
We’ll all have baboon hearts one of these days.
We wintered with ample fuel and real tomatoes.
We were allowed to roam, sniffing and chewing
at the tufted crust. We were let to breathe.
That is, we respirated. Now the soft clocks
have gorged themselves on our time. Yet
as our hair blanches and comes out
in hanks, we can tell it is nearly spring –
the students shed their black coats
on the green; we begin to see shade.
Lo, this is the breastbone’s embraceable light.
We are here. Still breathing and constellated.
A woman was fighting a tree. The tree had come to rage at the woman’s attack, breaking free from its earth it waddled at her with its great root feet.
Goddamn these sentiencies, roared the tree with birds shrieking in its branches.
Look out, you’ll fall on me, you bastard, screamed the woman as she hit at the tree.
The tree whisked and whisked with its leafy branches.
The woman kicked and bit screaming, kill me kill me or I’ll kill you!
The statue’s resting place looked pretty good. All she really had to do was get him deep enough so the dogs didn’t dig him up before the sale. After her exertions over his tomb, the hollow Saint Joseph seemed to weigh nothing in her hand. He seemed to float in space before her eyes. She set him down on his back in the hole, but found that she couldn’t shovel the dirt on top of him, not right on his face like that. She turned him face-down, but that seemed worse. When she picked him up again, half-frozen dirt had sifted into his open base. You could see it through the translucent, cream-colored skin: Saint Joseph turning brown as he filled up with soil.
You know it too! … The charm of funerals in the rain,
the special effects men with their hoses well aimed,
huge drops exploding on
classically beautiful
black umbrellas.
You know them, -
the houses like fat vegetables
stuffed with old lace, ceramics, silverware, dust –
secure as bank vaults.
Who will inherit?
Vittorio is dining with
that Chinese actress again…
Will the kingdom be divided?
Who will keep
the chandeliers in good repair
and tend the lists of public enemies?