2011 Paterson Poetry Prize

THE POETRY CENTER AT PASSAIC COUNTY COMMUNITY COLLEGE

is pleased to announce the winners of

THE 2011 PATERSON POETRY PRIZE WINNER

Elizabeth Alexander Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010

   (Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN)

Elizabeth Alexander’s Crave Radiance: New and Selected Poems 1990-2010 brings us home again – to dark pasts and uncertain futures, anguish and exaltation. Each poem grounds us with an intensity that insists we belong. With trust and expectation she presents a world that is undeniably real.

FINALISTS

Michael Cirelli, Vacations on The Black Star Line

   (Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, NY)

Stephen Dobyns, Winter’s Journey

   (Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA)

W. D. Ehrhart, The Bodies Beneath the Table  

  (Adastra Press, Easthampton, MA)

Erica Miriam Fabri, Dialect of a Skirt  

  (Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, NY)

Rebecca Foust, All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song 

  (Many Mountains Moving Press, Philadelphia, PA)

Tony Medina, My Old Man Was Always on the Lam 

  (NYQ Books, New York, NY)

Lois Roma-Deeley, High Notes 

  (Benu Press, Hopkins, MN)

Jackie Sheeler, Earthquake Came to Harlem 

  (NYQ Books, New York, NY)

Paterson Award for Sustained Literary Achievement for Previous Winners of The Paterson Poetry Prize

Maxine Kumin, Where I Live: New & Selected Poems 1990-2010 

  (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY)

Vivian Shipley, All of Your Messages Have Been Erased

   (Louisiana Literature Press, Hammond, LA)

Gerald Stern, Early Collected Poems: 1965-1992 

  (W. W. Norton & Company, New York, NY)

Paterson Award for Literary Excellence for Previous Finalists of The Paterson Poetry Prize

Eamon Grennan, Out of Sight: New & Selected Poems 

  (Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN)

Bob Hicok, Words for Empty and Words for Full 

  (University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh, PA)

Tony Hoagland, Unincorporated Persons in the Late Honda Dynasty 

  (Graywolf Press, Minneapolis, MN)

Lowell Jaeger, We 

  (Main Street Rag Publishing Company, Charlotte, NC)

Alex Lemon, Fancy Beasts

   (Milkweed Editions, Minneapolis, MN)

Erika Meitner, Ideal Cities

   (Harper Perennial, New York, NY)

Mervyn Taylor, No Back Door

   (Shearsman Books, Exeter, England)

 

 

April 14, 2012
Distinguished Poets Reading
featuring
2011 Paterson Poetry Prize Winner
Elizabeth Alexander

and finalists

Michael Cirelli
Stephen Dobyns
W.D. Ehrhart
Erica Miriam Fabri
Rebecca Foust
Tony Medina
Lois Roma-Deeley
Jackie Sheeler

1 p.m. -- Hamilton Club Building
32 Church Street, Paterson, NJ
Free

The Paterson Poetry Prize of $1,000 is given annually by the Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College to a book of poetry (48 pages or more) published in the previous year, with a minimum press run of 500 copies. For further information, contact Maria Mazziotti Gillan, Executive Director, Poetry Center at Passaic County Community College at (973) 684-6555 or visit www.pccc.edu/poetry.

The Poetry Center was named a Distinguished Arts Project and awarded several

Citations of Excellence, and is funded, in part, by a grant from the New Jersey

State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a partner agency of the National

Endowment for the Arts.