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.
A week into our affair, Severo Marquez told me he had shot his own dog. He’d already told me about his crazy female cousin who locked herself into the bathroom every Sunday and pounded nails into her hands in bloody imitation of Christ, about the jars of ears he saw in Vietnam, and his dramatic escape from Cuba—swimming across Guantánamo Bay under fire, dragging a rowboat full of relatives to the safety of the American base. I’d also heard about his Mookie-dog, part beagle, part Doberman, so smart she could carry an envelope to Severo’s mother across a mile of Little Havana, or climb a tree to find Severo in a woman’s apartment. When he said he’d shot this unbelievable animal, his dearest friend, there was a crack in his voice through which I could see him doing it, and suddenly I wondered whether everything else I’d heard from Severo might also be the truth.
I realize then that Wichu knows. Of course he knows. He was here, at this temple, outside of the pavilion with his mother, when Khamron got drafted years ago. He was here when the wealthier boys got taken out of the line. He was here when those same boys came back an hour later, took their places at the end of the lottery line, and—when their turns came—drew black card after black card after black card. Wichu had told me all about it the night of his brother’s draft. Although I had only half listened to him at the time, the memory of his voice comes back to me now in all its anger.
“Draft Day” from SIGHTSEEING © 2005 by Rattawaut Lapcharoensap; reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Atlantic, Inc.
In these short distances and insufferable spans the boy lives through a night forgotten by history, where the men of the land and soldiers of the shah take to each other with bullet, knife, curse and bludgeon to craft a single composition; the precise choreography of flesh puppets, strung to a thousand stars and pulled as sparring lovers, to and from the flame, to and from the gouge, to and from the stab and shot, their beating hearts like magnets charged to the opposite pulls of victory and death.
The husband joins his wife near the olive
shaded lamp and quails
as his raving lover seizes the neck of
the fixture. I shudder in the passenger seat of
this city, far enough to not be heard but a light shines
bright and I am seen, sleuthing and serious. I know
close violences still form in the absence of want.
I keep walking as the husband shuts the blinds.
We at school knew Mr. and Mrs. Cuts come from a family that eats children. There is a red metal tree with plastic-wrapped toys in the window and a long candy counter case to lure you in. Mr. and Mrs. Cuts have no children of their own. They ate them during a hard winter and salted the rest down for sandwiches the colored boy runs out to the pulpwood crew at noon. I count colored children going in to buy some candy to see how many make it back out, but generally our mother is ready to go home before I can tell. Our credit at Cuts is short.
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.
A week into our affair, Severo Marquez told me he had shot his own dog. He’d already told me about his crazy female cousin who locked herself into the bathroom every Sunday and pounded nails into her hands in bloody imitation of Christ, about the jars of ears he saw in Vietnam, and his dramatic escape from Cuba—swimming across Guantánamo Bay under fire, dragging a rowboat full of relatives to the safety of the American base. I’d also heard about his Mookie-dog, part beagle, part Doberman, so smart she could carry an envelope to Severo’s mother across a mile of Little Havana, or climb a tree to find Severo in a woman’s apartment. When he said he’d shot this unbelievable animal, his dearest friend, there was a crack in his voice through which I could see him doing it, and suddenly I wondered whether everything else I’d heard from Severo might also be the truth.
I realize then that Wichu knows. Of course he knows. He was here, at this temple, outside of the pavilion with his mother, when Khamron got drafted years ago. He was here when the wealthier boys got taken out of the line. He was here when those same boys came back an hour later, took their places at the end of the lottery line, and—when their turns came—drew black card after black card after black card. Wichu had told me all about it the night of his brother’s draft. Although I had only half listened to him at the time, the memory of his voice comes back to me now in all its anger.
“Draft Day” from SIGHTSEEING © 2005 by Rattawaut Lapcharoensap; reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Atlantic, Inc.
In these short distances and insufferable spans the boy lives through a night forgotten by history, where the men of the land and soldiers of the shah take to each other with bullet, knife, curse and bludgeon to craft a single composition; the precise choreography of flesh puppets, strung to a thousand stars and pulled as sparring lovers, to and from the flame, to and from the gouge, to and from the stab and shot, their beating hearts like magnets charged to the opposite pulls of victory and death.
The husband joins his wife near the olive
shaded lamp and quails
as his raving lover seizes the neck of
the fixture. I shudder in the passenger seat of
this city, far enough to not be heard but a light shines
bright and I am seen, sleuthing and serious. I know
close violences still form in the absence of want.
I keep walking as the husband shuts the blinds.
We at school knew Mr. and Mrs. Cuts come from a family that eats children. There is a red metal tree with plastic-wrapped toys in the window and a long candy counter case to lure you in. Mr. and Mrs. Cuts have no children of their own. They ate them during a hard winter and salted the rest down for sandwiches the colored boy runs out to the pulpwood crew at noon. I count colored children going in to buy some candy to see how many make it back out, but generally our mother is ready to go home before I can tell. Our credit at Cuts is short.
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.