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.
And the body is beautifully there, like hoarfrost.
Tears on its face now glimmering like dimes
falling from a slot machine, or a stream, thought lost,
that breaks through fresh snow at wintertime.
From Brother Salvage, posted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press
It is not the primary thrust or purpose of these essays to serve as autobiography. The strictly autobiographical portions are to be approached with caution. This is not to suggest that they are not true, but veracity is hardly the issue or the point. The autobiographical parts often serve the same purpose as notes in a symphony or passage of music: simply to get from one place to another. The personage I am in some of the essays, to borrow Henry Adams’s metaphor, is simply a manikin on which I model some suitable clothes for the occasion… I am a critic and it is best for the reader never to forget that, even if at times I appear to be playing other roles.
The cat was making friends. The previous day when Emmet returned home, he had found four other cats loitering near his building. He worried what would happen if the cats jumped him when he left the house. The cats understood his language, but what passed among their heads was impenetrable to him. He had observed their movements all summer and listened to their sighs and spits and sounds, but he was no closer to infiltrating any part of it as a sign.
Still behind him was that damn coyote. A determined critter, he was. He hadn’t caught sight of him for at least an hour, but he felt his presence out there. At first he had feared him. Now he didn’t. If circumstances were different he might have welcomed the company of a coyote on a lonely walk on a snowy night. At best, the coyote’s presence was disconcerting. He was puzzled. Why would a coyote be so determined? Poor animal. It had been such a hard winter for man and beast.
We do not mean to complain. We know how it is.
In older, even sadder cultures the worst possible sorts
have been playing hot and cold with people’s lives
for much longer. Like Perrow says,
We’ll all have baboon hearts one of these days.
We wintered with ample fuel and real tomatoes.
We were allowed to roam, sniffing and chewing
at the tufted crust. We were let to breathe.
That is, we respirated. Now the soft clocks
have gorged themselves on our time. Yet
as our hair blanches and comes out
in hanks, we can tell it is nearly spring –
the students shed their black coats
on the green; we begin to see shade.
Lo, this is the breastbone’s embraceable light.
We are here. Still breathing and constellated.
Able God walked in slowly, dazed, then he stepped outside and turned to look at his neighbors, who were sitting in the narrow alley. He scanned their faces for answers, but they turned away, shifted on their low stools, and one after another, went into their rooms.
Inside, Able God paced the house, frustration coiling around his head. Had he had any doubt that the police were aware of his involvement, what he saw erased it. He looked out through the louvered window. He blundered his way manically through the chaos, tossing things aside. He pulled up the mattress, rifled through his clothes, heaped one on the other.
He noticed they had not taken his hidden wrap of marijuana, but his chess pieces were spilled all over the ground. He tried to gather them into a plastic bag, but his whole body trembled now, his eyes smarting with tears. The chess set was not meant to be scattered; the pieces were meant to be neatly arranged. How had the police known where he lived? Maybe Akudo had been arrested, but if so, why was the madam protecting her whereabouts?
And the body is beautifully there, like hoarfrost.
Tears on its face now glimmering like dimes
falling from a slot machine, or a stream, thought lost,
that breaks through fresh snow at wintertime.
From Brother Salvage, posted by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press
It is not the primary thrust or purpose of these essays to serve as autobiography. The strictly autobiographical portions are to be approached with caution. This is not to suggest that they are not true, but veracity is hardly the issue or the point. The autobiographical parts often serve the same purpose as notes in a symphony or passage of music: simply to get from one place to another. The personage I am in some of the essays, to borrow Henry Adams’s metaphor, is simply a manikin on which I model some suitable clothes for the occasion… I am a critic and it is best for the reader never to forget that, even if at times I appear to be playing other roles.
The cat was making friends. The previous day when Emmet returned home, he had found four other cats loitering near his building. He worried what would happen if the cats jumped him when he left the house. The cats understood his language, but what passed among their heads was impenetrable to him. He had observed their movements all summer and listened to their sighs and spits and sounds, but he was no closer to infiltrating any part of it as a sign.
Still behind him was that damn coyote. A determined critter, he was. He hadn’t caught sight of him for at least an hour, but he felt his presence out there. At first he had feared him. Now he didn’t. If circumstances were different he might have welcomed the company of a coyote on a lonely walk on a snowy night. At best, the coyote’s presence was disconcerting. He was puzzled. Why would a coyote be so determined? Poor animal. It had been such a hard winter for man and beast.
We do not mean to complain. We know how it is.
In older, even sadder cultures the worst possible sorts
have been playing hot and cold with people’s lives
for much longer. Like Perrow says,
We’ll all have baboon hearts one of these days.
We wintered with ample fuel and real tomatoes.
We were allowed to roam, sniffing and chewing
at the tufted crust. We were let to breathe.
That is, we respirated. Now the soft clocks
have gorged themselves on our time. Yet
as our hair blanches and comes out
in hanks, we can tell it is nearly spring –
the students shed their black coats
on the green; we begin to see shade.
Lo, this is the breastbone’s embraceable light.
We are here. Still breathing and constellated.
Able God walked in slowly, dazed, then he stepped outside and turned to look at his neighbors, who were sitting in the narrow alley. He scanned their faces for answers, but they turned away, shifted on their low stools, and one after another, went into their rooms.
Inside, Able God paced the house, frustration coiling around his head. Had he had any doubt that the police were aware of his involvement, what he saw erased it. He looked out through the louvered window. He blundered his way manically through the chaos, tossing things aside. He pulled up the mattress, rifled through his clothes, heaped one on the other.
He noticed they had not taken his hidden wrap of marijuana, but his chess pieces were spilled all over the ground. He tried to gather them into a plastic bag, but his whole body trembled now, his eyes smarting with tears. The chess set was not meant to be scattered; the pieces were meant to be neatly arranged. How had the police known where he lived? Maybe Akudo had been arrested, but if so, why was the madam protecting her whereabouts?