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.

Staggered Lights
Poems

A man and a woman

are lying together

listening to news of a war.

The radio dial

is the only light in the room.

Casualties are read out.

He thinks, “Those are people

I no longer have to love,”

and he touches her hair

and calls her name

but it sounds strange to her

like a stone left over

from a house already built.

Carnations
Poems

Kenosha is hideous behind us, cloaked by this cloud that hangs

On the pigeons flushed out:  the last exhalation of the auto assembly. 

We wait at the base of the docks, and talk about the White Sox,

Not the Roman Empire.  My father and I stare right at it, but talk baseball.

Terrace Story

The old window gave a grand view of Yellow Tree, trunk to branch. They called it Yellow Tree even though the gingko was yellow for only about a week each year, its fan-shaped leaves rustling to the ground at the first suggestion of a breeze. Annie and Edward held the baby to the window and said, “See? Yellow!” But she was too small to say “yellow” in response. She just looked and watched and touched the glass. They wiped her fingerprints from the window and kissed the fingers that made the prints. Then the leaves fell, and the scenery changed. Some views show less than half of what needs seeing.

When the rent became unpayable, they went in search of a more affordable living situation. What’s your living situation? Annie turned the phrase over in her mind, the situation of their life. They had not saved nearly enough for a broker’s fee, let alone a security deposit.

“It looks smaller than it really is,” Edward said, leading Annie around the new apartment. A dimly lit lopsided square. “Give it some time, it might grow on you!”

“You mean it might literally grow?” Annie asked.

At the new apartment, there were no views of Yellow Tree. The introverted windows were gated and clasped and huddled around a central shaft that Edward dubbed Pigeon Tunnel. Edward and Annie liked inventing proper nouns for their world. Yellow Tree, Pigeon Tunnel, Closet Mystery. Closet Mystery was Annie’s term for the mystery of their single, overstuffed closet. Upon opening, what would catapult forth? It was a bona fide enigma. Edward and Annie picked a proper noun for their baby too. Her noun was Rose.

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.

Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky
Poems

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.

Staggered Lights
Poems

A man and a woman

are lying together

listening to news of a war.

The radio dial

is the only light in the room.

Casualties are read out.

He thinks, “Those are people

I no longer have to love,”

and he touches her hair

and calls her name

but it sounds strange to her

like a stone left over

from a house already built.

Staggered Lights
Poems

A man and a woman

are lying together

listening to news of a war.

The radio dial

is the only light in the room.

Casualties are read out.

He thinks, “Those are people

I no longer have to love,”

and he touches her hair

and calls her name

but it sounds strange to her

like a stone left over

from a house already built.

Carnations
Poems

Kenosha is hideous behind us, cloaked by this cloud that hangs

On the pigeons flushed out:  the last exhalation of the auto assembly. 

We wait at the base of the docks, and talk about the White Sox,

Not the Roman Empire.  My father and I stare right at it, but talk baseball.

Terrace Story

The old window gave a grand view of Yellow Tree, trunk to branch. They called it Yellow Tree even though the gingko was yellow for only about a week each year, its fan-shaped leaves rustling to the ground at the first suggestion of a breeze. Annie and Edward held the baby to the window and said, “See? Yellow!” But she was too small to say “yellow” in response. She just looked and watched and touched the glass. They wiped her fingerprints from the window and kissed the fingers that made the prints. Then the leaves fell, and the scenery changed. Some views show less than half of what needs seeing.

When the rent became unpayable, they went in search of a more affordable living situation. What’s your living situation? Annie turned the phrase over in her mind, the situation of their life. They had not saved nearly enough for a broker’s fee, let alone a security deposit.

“It looks smaller than it really is,” Edward said, leading Annie around the new apartment. A dimly lit lopsided square. “Give it some time, it might grow on you!”

“You mean it might literally grow?” Annie asked.

At the new apartment, there were no views of Yellow Tree. The introverted windows were gated and clasped and huddled around a central shaft that Edward dubbed Pigeon Tunnel. Edward and Annie liked inventing proper nouns for their world. Yellow Tree, Pigeon Tunnel, Closet Mystery. Closet Mystery was Annie’s term for the mystery of their single, overstuffed closet. Upon opening, what would catapult forth? It was a bona fide enigma. Edward and Annie picked a proper noun for their baby too. Her noun was Rose.

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.

Rainbow Remnants in Rock Bottom Ghetto Sky
Poems

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.

Staggered Lights
Poems

A man and a woman

are lying together

listening to news of a war.

The radio dial

is the only light in the room.

Casualties are read out.

He thinks, “Those are people

I no longer have to love,”

and he touches her hair

and calls her name

but it sounds strange to her

like a stone left over

from a house already built.