The National Book Foundation sadly marks the passing
of National Book Award Winner and Finalist poet William
Meredith. A 1965 National Book Award Poetry Finalist
for The Wreck of the Thresher, Meredith went
on to win the award in 1997 for his collection
Effort at Speech: New & Selected Poems.
The program from the 1997 National Book Award Ceremony
describe Meredith and his winning title:
Declared to be Meredith's "definitive collection,"
Effort at Speech draws on nine previous books in addition
to a dozen new poems.
William Meredith is a contemporary of John Berrman,
Elizabeth Bishop, and Robert Lowell. His first volume
of poetry, Love Letter from an Impossible Land, won
the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition in 1943;
his fourth book, The Wreck of the Thresher, was a
Finalist for The National Book Award in 1965.
The
poems of William Meredith are possessed of the
sturdiness and spare elegance of Shaker furniture.
Without demanding attention, he gathers it; without
raising his voice, he is distinctively heard.
He takes calm, though not unruffled, joy in being
an American citizen and in being a most careful
observer of the world. His example shows us the
truth in his line: "the bright watchers are
still there." |
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Official judges citation for 1997 National Book
Award
Poetry
Winning title, Effort
at Speech.
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