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.
I
What a lucky beast I am,
when he cleans up nice
and nicks his perfect face.
I get to lick that face,
when he lets me.
In the cut’s opening
I get a taste of him
from the inside
out, which is all I have
ever wanted,
to be cell-close
to him. Praise the razor’s
overzealous arm;
the ease
with which it finds tenderness
in this man.
We will rebuild our city, yes—we will, we will build a new city in the image of our old city, a city that will withstand whatever nature sends against it, a city that will rise up into the sky, our mayor said, pointing, his arm trembling, a city raised up into the clouds, a cloud city, a city of the air currents, of the jet streams, of warm fronts and cold fronts, a city that will harness the power of the weather and put it to good use, only good, constructive use.
I am a cowry girl, a marine biologist to be exact. The 8-hour move-
ment started in the United States in 1884. Feeling more and more.
Gave birth. Took up the question. 8 hours shall be the norm. Marx:
Slavery disfigured a part of the republic. Labor with a white skin
cannot emancipate itself where labor with a black skin is branded.
The time named. Endorse the same. Half of the same. More pro-
foundly. Therefore be considered a synonym.
When the gates fly open the horses are like a freak storm moving over the track together, their legs attended by a cloud of dust that they trail behind them, their jockeys’ colors flashing kaleidoscopically in the sunlight. The loudness of their pounding takes me by surprise. It overwhelms even the crowd. I am so stunned by the sight of them that by the time I collect myself, they have disappeared around the turn. We who are sitting close to the wire stand there listening to the call, waiting for them to reappear.
The police ask me to empty my pockets. I turn them inside out and lay my miserabilia on the table. Two policemen quite unashamedly feel my thighs and ass, which tickles me. With clinical concentration they examine the stuff on the table. It is an obscene invasion of my privacy, more so than if they had turned my asshole inside out and inspected it under a microscope—any microbiologist could tell you that there we are remarkably similar. In pockets turned inside out you can see how we differ.
You are told when to sleep and when to wake up. If you spend too much time in your bedroom, it indicates that you’re being antisocial; if you do sit in the common areas, but don’t interact with the other patients, you’re probably depressed or overly inward or perhaps even catatonic. Humans might all be ciphers to one another, but people with mental illness are particularly opaque because of our broken brains; we cannot be trusted about anything, including our own experiences.
I
What a lucky beast I am,
when he cleans up nice
and nicks his perfect face.
I get to lick that face,
when he lets me.
In the cut’s opening
I get a taste of him
from the inside
out, which is all I have
ever wanted,
to be cell-close
to him. Praise the razor’s
overzealous arm;
the ease
with which it finds tenderness
in this man.
We will rebuild our city, yes—we will, we will build a new city in the image of our old city, a city that will withstand whatever nature sends against it, a city that will rise up into the sky, our mayor said, pointing, his arm trembling, a city raised up into the clouds, a cloud city, a city of the air currents, of the jet streams, of warm fronts and cold fronts, a city that will harness the power of the weather and put it to good use, only good, constructive use.
I am a cowry girl, a marine biologist to be exact. The 8-hour move-
ment started in the United States in 1884. Feeling more and more.
Gave birth. Took up the question. 8 hours shall be the norm. Marx:
Slavery disfigured a part of the republic. Labor with a white skin
cannot emancipate itself where labor with a black skin is branded.
The time named. Endorse the same. Half of the same. More pro-
foundly. Therefore be considered a synonym.
When the gates fly open the horses are like a freak storm moving over the track together, their legs attended by a cloud of dust that they trail behind them, their jockeys’ colors flashing kaleidoscopically in the sunlight. The loudness of their pounding takes me by surprise. It overwhelms even the crowd. I am so stunned by the sight of them that by the time I collect myself, they have disappeared around the turn. We who are sitting close to the wire stand there listening to the call, waiting for them to reappear.
The police ask me to empty my pockets. I turn them inside out and lay my miserabilia on the table. Two policemen quite unashamedly feel my thighs and ass, which tickles me. With clinical concentration they examine the stuff on the table. It is an obscene invasion of my privacy, more so than if they had turned my asshole inside out and inspected it under a microscope—any microbiologist could tell you that there we are remarkably similar. In pockets turned inside out you can see how we differ.
You are told when to sleep and when to wake up. If you spend too much time in your bedroom, it indicates that you’re being antisocial; if you do sit in the common areas, but don’t interact with the other patients, you’re probably depressed or overly inward or perhaps even catatonic. Humans might all be ciphers to one another, but people with mental illness are particularly opaque because of our broken brains; we cannot be trusted about anything, including our own experiences.