Poetry Finalists 
Harryette
Mullen
Sleeping with the Dictionary
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Born
in Florence, Alabama, and raised in Fort Worth, Texas,
Harryette Mullen is Associate
Professor of English and African American Studies at the
University of California, Los Angeles. Sleeping with
the Dictionary is her fifth collection of poetry.
She is also the author of Tree Tall Woman (1981),
Trimmings (1991), S*PeRM**KT (1992), and
Muse & Drudge (1995). A recipient of a Dobie-Paisano
Fellowship from the Institute at the University of Rochester,
and the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry, she
has taught in the Poets in the Schools Program in Texas,
and serves on the faculty of Cave Canem, a workshop for
African-American poets. |
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Inspired by acrostics,
anagrams, and puns; a "collaboration" with
Roget's Thesaurus and the American Heritage Dictionary;
and her own reflections on the politics of language,
Harryette Mullen's alphabetically arranged poems stir
new perspectives on the words we use.
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Sharon Olds
The Unswept Room
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Sharon
Olds was born in San Francisco and educated at
Stanford University and Columbia University, where she
earned her PhD. Her books are Satan Says (1980),
The Dead and the Living (1984), The Gold Cell
(1991), The Wellspring (1995), The Father
(1992), and Blood, Tin, Straw. (1999). Her poems
appear frequently in The New Yorker and other magazines.
She was the New York State Poet Laureate from 1998 to
2000. She teaches at New York University and the NYU Workshop
Program at Goldwater Hospital for the severely physically
disabled on Roosevelt Island. |
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A
new collection of poems from a distinguished poet, ranging
from those erupting out of history and childhood, a new
generation of children, the transformative power of marital
love, and the shock when that love comes to an end. |
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Alberto Ríos
The Smallest Muscle in the Human Body
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Alberto
Ríos was born in Nogales, Arizona, on the
Mexican border, in 1952. He studied at the University
of Arizona, where he received a MFA in Creative Writing.
His books include Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir
(1999); The Curtain of Trees: Stories (1999); Pig
Cookies and Other Stories (1995); Teodoro Luna's
Two Kisses: Poems (1990); The Lime Orchard Woman:
Poems (1988); Five Indiscretions: A Book of Poems
(1985); The Iguana Killer: Twelve Stories of the Heart
(1984), and Whispering to Fool the Wind: Poems
(1982). His poetry has been set to music in a cantata
by James DeMars called "Tito's Say," and was
also featured in the documentary "Birthwrite: Growing
Up Hispanic." Since 1982, he has taught at Arizona
State University. He lives in Chandler, Arizona. |
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Set
in a town that straddles the American/Mexican border,
these poems are lyric adventures, crossing boundaries
as they move between cultures, languages, and sensibilities.
Drawing upon fable, parable, and family legend, Alberto
Ríos utilizes the imagination of childhood to reveal
essential relationships. |
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Ellen Bryant
Voigt
Shadow of Heaven
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Born in Virginia
in 1943, Ellen Bryant Voigt
grew up on a farm and, from an early age, was a
serious student of the piano. She attended Converse College
and the University of Iowa. She was the recipient of the
2002 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, the Pushcart
Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation
and the National Endowment for the Arts. She has taught
at Goddard College and Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and now teaches in the low-residency MFA Program for writers
at Warren Wilson College. The Vermont Symphony Orchestra
on its 2000 tour premiered a commissioned work based on
her previous book Kyrie. She lives in Cabot, Vermont,
and is currently Vermont State Poet. |
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With
titles such as "Winter Field," "The Garden,
Spring, the Hawk," and "Autumn in the Yard We
Planted," nature infuses these poems and sequences
written by a poet determined "to bring out-doors
inside, /The natural and the wild, picked by my own hand." |
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