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.

The Selected Poetry of Hayden Carruth

I don’t know why or how

Sometimes in August a maple

Will drop through a leaf burned through

Its tender parts with coral

While the veins keep green –

A rare device of color.

When I found such a one

I acted the despoiler,

Taking it from the woods

To give a friend for a trifle,

But her mind was on good deeds

And I turned shy and fearful.

TwERK
Poems

               titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofa.

thrash reverberating neatly polish mih ride.

                            hyphy dancehall — no can

               hear tings demur.

titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofer

whine mih curvature: cause a road slaughtah.

                            ain’t neck breaking like dutty

               when she whine.

               titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofa.

thrash reverberating neatly polish mih ride. sih?

The Jump-Off Creek
A Novel

Every thing I own save the poor Beasts is in a heap here in the center of this room and if I mean to keep it whole I must before I sleep cover all against the leaking, rake old tins & leavings outside the door, burn a camphor stick against vermin, set my few mouse traps along the walls. And hope for better Weather & Strength in the days coming. I have put out in the night the 2 boys I found here, they had taken up living in the empty house. Those were Troubles I could not borrow, as I am scarce likely to make my own living in this poor place and coming West I have seen idle men Everywhere abut in La Grande and Boise and Missoula and in the Papers woeful news of the falling price of Wheat & Cattle both. They were polite & forebearing, for which reason I am sorry.

The Museum of Unnatural Histories: Poems

 

 

Nat Turner in Jerusalem
A Play

NAT TURNER

What do you mean by your copyright?

The right to copy?

 

THOMAS R. GRAY

Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.

 

NAT

And who can grant such a right?

 

THOMAS

The copyright office, naturally.

 

NAT

...

 

THOMAS

It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.

 

NAT

And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?

 

THOMAS

Uh,

No.

Great Plains
Essays

I did not know one person in Montana. I sat in the house and tried to write a novel about high school; I went for walks, drank quarts of Coors beer, listened to the radio. At night, a neighbor’s horse shifted his weight from hoof to hoof out in the trees, and sometimes cropped grass so near I could hear him chew. The first snowstorm blew in from the north, and crows crossed the sky before it like thrown black socks. For years in New York I had dreamed of Montana. Actually, I had also dreamed of joining the Army, going to truck-driving school in New Jersey, building a wooden sailboat, playing the great golf courses of the world, and moving to Fiji. I had examined all those ideas and then rejected them. Montana made the most sense to me.

The Selected Poetry of Hayden Carruth

I don’t know why or how

Sometimes in August a maple

Will drop through a leaf burned through

Its tender parts with coral

While the veins keep green –

A rare device of color.

When I found such a one

I acted the despoiler,

Taking it from the woods

To give a friend for a trifle,

But her mind was on good deeds

And I turned shy and fearful.

TwERK
Poems

               titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofa.

thrash reverberating neatly polish mih ride.

                            hyphy dancehall — no can

               hear tings demur.

titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofer

whine mih curvature: cause a road slaughtah.

                            ain’t neck breaking like dutty

               when she whine.

               titanium, boom shocka, kill di woofa.

thrash reverberating neatly polish mih ride. sih?

The Jump-Off Creek
A Novel

Every thing I own save the poor Beasts is in a heap here in the center of this room and if I mean to keep it whole I must before I sleep cover all against the leaking, rake old tins & leavings outside the door, burn a camphor stick against vermin, set my few mouse traps along the walls. And hope for better Weather & Strength in the days coming. I have put out in the night the 2 boys I found here, they had taken up living in the empty house. Those were Troubles I could not borrow, as I am scarce likely to make my own living in this poor place and coming West I have seen idle men Everywhere abut in La Grande and Boise and Missoula and in the Papers woeful news of the falling price of Wheat & Cattle both. They were polite & forebearing, for which reason I am sorry.

The Museum of Unnatural Histories: Poems

 

 

Nat Turner in Jerusalem
A Play

NAT TURNER

What do you mean by your copyright?

The right to copy?

 

THOMAS R. GRAY

Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.

 

NAT

And who can grant such a right?

 

THOMAS

The copyright office, naturally.

 

NAT

...

 

THOMAS

It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.

 

NAT

And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?

 

THOMAS

Uh,

No.

Great Plains
Essays

I did not know one person in Montana. I sat in the house and tried to write a novel about high school; I went for walks, drank quarts of Coors beer, listened to the radio. At night, a neighbor’s horse shifted his weight from hoof to hoof out in the trees, and sometimes cropped grass so near I could hear him chew. The first snowstorm blew in from the north, and crows crossed the sky before it like thrown black socks. For years in New York I had dreamed of Montana. Actually, I had also dreamed of joining the Army, going to truck-driving school in New Jersey, building a wooden sailboat, playing the great golf courses of the world, and moving to Fiji. I had examined all those ideas and then rejected them. Montana made the most sense to me.