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.
Faye fell to the deck in slow motion. It took forever for this part to end. “Hold still,” he warned as he cut her out of her clothes, the blade cool against her belly. “You won’t be needing these,” he said, and she knew rape wasn’t the last thing. She knew he intended to kill. That was next, when he had done with her. It meant something to him to know he was disgusting her now, hurting her, terrorizing her, it was why he did it, why he kept his eyes on her face, as he labored over her, his good arm corded and trembling, the point of the knife at her throat. She stared up past him to the square of sky framed by the hatch, waiting for it to be over, this now, waiting for the next thing, her next chance, her last chance.
My sister was enrolled in a beauty pageant for virgins, a contest I thought she could win. She was cute enough, but also, how many teenage hymens were left in America anymore? Even the emu-faced girls had been initiated by twelve. Fewer contestants fueled better odds.
- You might actually win, I told Nabisase.
- I’m glad that this surprises you, she said.
Alone in a London museum, I saw a watercolor of twin
flames, one black, one a gauzy red,
only to learn the title is Boats at Sea. It's like how
sometimes I forget you're gone.
But it's not like that, is it? Not at all. When in this world
similes carry us nowhere.
And now I see again the boy pelting through those galleries
a boy not you, a flash of red, red, chasing, or being chased—
Or did I invent him? Mischief companion. Brother.
Listen to me
plead for your life though even in the dream I know you're
already dead.
How do I insure my desire for grief is never satisfied? Was
Priam's ever?
I tell my friend, I want the page itself to burn.
Some of the prisoners were strung like beef
From the ceilings of their cells. “Gus”
Was led around on a leash. I mean dragged.
Others were ridden like mules. The guards
Were under a tremendous amount of pleasure.
I mean pressure. Pretty disgusting. Not
What you’d expect from Americans.
Just kidding. I’m only talking about people
Having a good time, blowing off steam.
Panther. Painter. Puma. Cougar. Mountain lion. Whatever you want to call it, by the end of October, half a dozen more people claim they have caught a glimpse of it: a pale sliver in the distance, a flash of fur through the trees. In the woods, hunters linger in their tree stands, hoping they might be the next. In the houses, the big cat creeps nightly, making the rounds of dinner tables and dreams.
Dear Yu Honor
Yu may rmember me when yu visits prison
here I am Walter Boyd Leadbelly #42738
yo best big niger from Sugarland Farm
wit my stella guitar and songs yu like
I play it all like a black machine for yu loud an slow
Down in the valley What a frend we have in
Jesus an I Sugarland shuffle like pickin cotton far as
eye cn see I need my freedom like yu said yu was gone give me
yur honor all I need a second chance rmembr me
yu sed I was som niger som niger need they pardon
GOVERNOR
thank yu for yo kind kind hand yo wisdum.
Copyright 2004 by Tyehimba Jess. Published by Verse Press. Reprinted with permission of the author and Wave Books.
Faye fell to the deck in slow motion. It took forever for this part to end. “Hold still,” he warned as he cut her out of her clothes, the blade cool against her belly. “You won’t be needing these,” he said, and she knew rape wasn’t the last thing. She knew he intended to kill. That was next, when he had done with her. It meant something to him to know he was disgusting her now, hurting her, terrorizing her, it was why he did it, why he kept his eyes on her face, as he labored over her, his good arm corded and trembling, the point of the knife at her throat. She stared up past him to the square of sky framed by the hatch, waiting for it to be over, this now, waiting for the next thing, her next chance, her last chance.
My sister was enrolled in a beauty pageant for virgins, a contest I thought she could win. She was cute enough, but also, how many teenage hymens were left in America anymore? Even the emu-faced girls had been initiated by twelve. Fewer contestants fueled better odds.
- You might actually win, I told Nabisase.
- I’m glad that this surprises you, she said.
Alone in a London museum, I saw a watercolor of twin
flames, one black, one a gauzy red,
only to learn the title is Boats at Sea. It's like how
sometimes I forget you're gone.
But it's not like that, is it? Not at all. When in this world
similes carry us nowhere.
And now I see again the boy pelting through those galleries
a boy not you, a flash of red, red, chasing, or being chased—
Or did I invent him? Mischief companion. Brother.
Listen to me
plead for your life though even in the dream I know you're
already dead.
How do I insure my desire for grief is never satisfied? Was
Priam's ever?
I tell my friend, I want the page itself to burn.
Some of the prisoners were strung like beef
From the ceilings of their cells. “Gus”
Was led around on a leash. I mean dragged.
Others were ridden like mules. The guards
Were under a tremendous amount of pleasure.
I mean pressure. Pretty disgusting. Not
What you’d expect from Americans.
Just kidding. I’m only talking about people
Having a good time, blowing off steam.
Panther. Painter. Puma. Cougar. Mountain lion. Whatever you want to call it, by the end of October, half a dozen more people claim they have caught a glimpse of it: a pale sliver in the distance, a flash of fur through the trees. In the woods, hunters linger in their tree stands, hoping they might be the next. In the houses, the big cat creeps nightly, making the rounds of dinner tables and dreams.
Dear Yu Honor
Yu may rmember me when yu visits prison
here I am Walter Boyd Leadbelly #42738
yo best big niger from Sugarland Farm
wit my stella guitar and songs yu like
I play it all like a black machine for yu loud an slow
Down in the valley What a frend we have in
Jesus an I Sugarland shuffle like pickin cotton far as
eye cn see I need my freedom like yu said yu was gone give me
yur honor all I need a second chance rmembr me
yu sed I was som niger som niger need they pardon
GOVERNOR
thank yu for yo kind kind hand yo wisdum.
Copyright 2004 by Tyehimba Jess. Published by Verse Press. Reprinted with permission of the author and Wave Books.