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.
Turn signals blink through ice in the skin.
Snake dreams uncoil,
burrow into the spine of books.
Night spills from cracked eggs.
Thin hands vein oars in a canyon bed.
We follow deer tracks back to the insertion of her tongue.
I went to visit Grandma and Ralph for a week right after having learned how to whistle. I whistled at all times, with dedication and complete concentration. When I was asked a question I whistled the answer, I whistled along with people as they talked, I whistled the answer while I worked, I whistled while I played. Eventually they made a rule that whistling was forbidden in their house.
The train arrived with a smell of hot metal. Not the one she needed. Framed in the windows, the frozen-forward faces of the passengers. But they different in New York, Lucifer says. Here, the seats face forward overlooking the tracks—as if you were the conductor, you think—but there, you face the other passengers, keep yo eyes to yoself. Yes, you think, looking but not seeing, eyes turned away, curving and swerving with the tracks. The conductor shouted, STANDING PASSENGERS, PLEASE DO NOT LEAN ON THE DOORS. Cause you might fall out of the doors, like teeth spilling from a mouth. The train drew off.
so mama said no running, afraid
for me: shriveled lansones, sickly.
threat of skinned shins. cherry
glow of lola’s clove cigarettes,
smoke plumes sealing my throat.
or on my cheeks, plum rashes
blooming from playing in witchwillow.
these days, I don’t run much.
but I was only seven when I broke
a girl’s front teeth.
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?
Long ago a fish forgot what fins were good for
And flew out of the stream
It was not dreaming
It had no ambition but confusion
In Nova Scotia it lies on ice in the sun
and its eye turns white and pops out like a pearl
when it’s broiled
The Titanic is the one that got away.
Turn signals blink through ice in the skin.
Snake dreams uncoil,
burrow into the spine of books.
Night spills from cracked eggs.
Thin hands vein oars in a canyon bed.
We follow deer tracks back to the insertion of her tongue.
I went to visit Grandma and Ralph for a week right after having learned how to whistle. I whistled at all times, with dedication and complete concentration. When I was asked a question I whistled the answer, I whistled along with people as they talked, I whistled the answer while I worked, I whistled while I played. Eventually they made a rule that whistling was forbidden in their house.
The train arrived with a smell of hot metal. Not the one she needed. Framed in the windows, the frozen-forward faces of the passengers. But they different in New York, Lucifer says. Here, the seats face forward overlooking the tracks—as if you were the conductor, you think—but there, you face the other passengers, keep yo eyes to yoself. Yes, you think, looking but not seeing, eyes turned away, curving and swerving with the tracks. The conductor shouted, STANDING PASSENGERS, PLEASE DO NOT LEAN ON THE DOORS. Cause you might fall out of the doors, like teeth spilling from a mouth. The train drew off.
so mama said no running, afraid
for me: shriveled lansones, sickly.
threat of skinned shins. cherry
glow of lola’s clove cigarettes,
smoke plumes sealing my throat.
or on my cheeks, plum rashes
blooming from playing in witchwillow.
these days, I don’t run much.
but I was only seven when I broke
a girl’s front teeth.
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?
Long ago a fish forgot what fins were good for
And flew out of the stream
It was not dreaming
It had no ambition but confusion
In Nova Scotia it lies on ice in the sun
and its eye turns white and pops out like a pearl
when it’s broiled
The Titanic is the one that got away.