Literature: FY 2005 Grants

Some details of the projects listed below are subject to change, contingent upon prior Endowment approval.

Access to Artistic Excellence | Access to Artistic Excellence II
Literature Fellowships | Panelists

Access to Artistic Excellence

Academy of American Poets, Inc.
New York, NY
$30,000
To support the National Poetry Almanac, an online resource featuring 365 days of poetry highlights, activities, ideas, and history. The Academy will promote the almanac as a printable anthology and study guide to teachers and librarians across the country.

Alice James Books (Alice James Poetry Cooperative, Inc.)
Farmington, ME
$25,000
To support the publication and promotion of poetry titles selected from two annual competitions, as well as a collection of new and selected poetry by Donald Revell. The selected poets will read from their works at venues around the country.

American Poetry Review
Philadelphia, PA
$20,000
To support increased author payments and a direct mail campaign for The American Poetry Review. The journal will solicit 120,000 readers of such publications as Utne Reader, New York Review of Books, and Black Scholar.

Antioch University (on behalf of Antioch Review)
Yellow Springs, OH
$10,000
To support the publication and promotion of issues of the Antioch Review. The publication will increase payments to writers and redesign its Web site to attract additional readers.

Bamboo Ridge Press
Honolulu, HI
$7,500
To support the publication and promotion of issues of Bamboo Ridge, a journal by and about the people of Hawaii. The journal will publish a special issue of short stories by Mavis Hara; the stories focus on three generations of Japanese women in Honolulu.

BOA Editions, Ltd.
Rochester, NY
$35,000
To support production, promotion, and related expenses for new volumes of poetry. Scheduled poets to be published include Russell Edson, Ray Gonzalez, Jacqueline Osherow, and Naomi Shihab Nye.

Boston University (on behalf of AGNI)
Boston, MA
$10,000
To support the publication and promotion of issues of AGNI. The magazine will launch an 8,000-piece direct mail campaign to readers of publications such as Poets & Writers.

Bowling Green State University Main Campus (on behalf of Mid-American Review)
Bowling Green, OH
$10,000
To support the publication and related expenses for issues of Mid-American Review. One issue will be devoted entirely to writers who are publishing for the first time.

Center for Religious Humanism (on behalf of Image)
Seattle, WA
$17,500
To support the production, promotion, and increased writers fees for issues of Image: A Journal of the Arts & Religion. The journal will increase its national reach through an improved Web site and a direct mail campaign.

Children's Book Press
San Francisco, CA
$30,000
To support the publication and promotion of bilingual children's books for Mexican-American and Arab-American communities. The press will promote the books to librarians, educators, and the general public at book fairs around the country.

Coffee House Press
Minneapolis, MN
$30,000
To support the publication, promotion, and national distribution of volumes of fiction and creative nonfiction. Scheduled writers include Ellen Cooney, Laurie Foos, Kenneth Koch, U Sam Oeur, and Quincy Troupe

College of Charleston (on behalf of Crazyhorse)
Charleston, SC
$5,000
To support the publication and promotion of issues of Crazyhorse. Since 1960, this literary journal has featured writing from such authors as John Updike, Kynda Hull, and Raymond Carver.

Copper Canyon Press
Port Townsend, WA
$50,000
To support the publication, promotion, and national distribution of books of poetry. Authors include C.D. Wright, Alberto Rios, Arthur Sze, W.S. Merwin, and June Jordan.

Curbstone Press, Inc.
Willimantic, CT
$30,000
To support the translation, publication, and promotion of contemporary, multicultural poetry and fiction. Curbstone Press will sponsor readings in bookstores, libraries, schools, and communities with large minority populations.

Dalkey Archive Press (Center for Book Culture)
Normal, IL
$50,000
To support the publication and promotion of original and reprinted works of fiction and creative nonfiction in translation. Dalkey Archive Press will publish titles from Africa, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, Russia, and Serbia.

Fairleigh Dickinson University (on behalf of The Literary Review)
Teaneck, NJ
$10,000
To support a special issue of The Literary Review devoted to contemporary Italian fiction in translation. The journal will sponsor free readings and donate 100 copies to hospitals and prisons.

FC2 (Fiction Collective, Inc.)
Tallahassee, FL
$7,500
To support the publication and promotion of works of fiction. The press will organize group readings for its authors in such cities as New Orleans, New York, and Tallahassee, Florida.

Feminist Press, Inc.
New York, NY
$35,000
To support the publication and promotion of fiction and creative nonfiction in translation as part of the Women Writers of the Islamic World series. Scheduled titles explore the cultures of Iraq, Algeria, Afghanistan, the West Bank, and India

Friends of Writers, Inc. (on behalf of Four Way Books)
Marshfield, VT
$7,500
To support the publication and promotion of volumes of poetry, as well as author readings. Scheduled authors include Lee Briccetti, Pablo Medina, Cammy Thomas, and Dan Tobin.

Graywolf Press
St. Paul, MN
$65,000
To support the publication, promotion, and national distribution of volumes of poetry and creative nonfiction. Scheduled authors include Kevin McIlvoy, Susan Wheeler, Vijay Seshadri, Tom Sleigh, Sylvia Watanabe, Stephen Burt, and Saskia Hamilton.

Guild Complex (on behalf of Tia Chucha Press)
Chicago, IL
$7,500
To support the publication and promotion of books of poetry. Scheduled titles include a multicultural anthology of Tia Chucha Press authors, which the press will target to schools throughout the country.

Gulf Coast: A Journal of Literature & Fine Arts, Inc.
Houston, TX
$5,000
To support the publication and promotion of issues of Gulf Coast. The journal will enhance its Web site and sponsor a Houston-based reading series for local emerging writers and a small press and journal book fair.

Hudson Review, Inc.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support Hudson Review Criticsand Poets Online, a free online archive of selected essays and poetry from the journal's 56 years of publishing. Each selection will include an author's photo and short biography, and audio links to recordings when available.

Kenyon Review
Gambier, OH
$10,000
To support publication costs and related expenses for issues of The Kenyon Review, including a special theme issue on the Human Genome Project. The journal is distributed to more than 6,000 readers across the country, including 1,000 libraries.

Milkweed Editions, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$40,000
To support the publication and promotion of books by emerging and mid-career writers. Scheduled authors include Laura Pritchett, Dennis Sampson, David Brendan Hopes, and Naomi Shihab Nye

National Poetry Series, Inc.
Princeton, NJ
$15,000
To support evaluation fees and publication costs for poetry volumes selected from the National Poetry Series Open Competition. Chosen by distinguished poets, the five winning manuscripts will be published by HarperCollins Publishers, Verse Press, Coffee House Press, the University of Illinois Press, and Viking Penguin.

Ploughshares, Inc.
Boston, MA
$15,000
To support the publication and national circulation of issues of Ploughshares. The Winter 2005-06 and Spring 2006 issues will feature new work by as many as 70 poets and 12 fiction writers.

Poetry Daily (Daily Poetry Association, Inc.)
Charlottesville, VA
$7,000
To support the online publication Poetry Daily. This journal features a new poem and poet every day, as well as criticism and links to contemprary poetry and poets.

Poetry Flash
Berkeley, CA
$10,000
To support the publication and distribution of issues of Poetry Flash, a free tabloid of event listings, readings, workshops and literary news. Distributed to 22,000 readers nationwide, Poetry Flash also includes poems, reviews, essays, and interviews.

Rain Taxi, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$10,000
To support the publication, promotion, and national distribution of issues of Rain Taxi Review of Books. The quarterly magazine features in-depth interviews, profiles of small, independent, and university presses, essays by writers, and reviews of current fiction, nonfiction, drama, and works in translation.

Red Hen Press
Granada Hills, CA
$15,000
To support the publication and promotion of works by California poets. The press will sponsor author readings as part of California's Poetry in the Schools program, and donate books to students at each reading.

Sarabande Books, Inc.
Louisville, KY
$30,000
To support the publication and promotion of collections of poetry and short fiction. Authors will conduct readings and workshops around the country.

Small Press Distribution, Inc.
Berkeley, CA
$40,000
To support a distribution initiative targeting individuals, libraries, and bookstores in all 50 states. Publications from approximately 500 small and independent presses will be included.

Threepenny Review
Berkeley, CA
$15,000
To support authors' fees and promotional costs for issues of the Threepenny Review. Featuring work by established and emerging writers, the proposed issues will be promoted through a direct mail subscription campaign targeting 90,000 readers.

Tupelo Press, Inc.
Dorset, VT
$10,000
To support the publication and promotion of books of poetry. The press will publish the work of Vietnamese-American poets and arrange reading tours for veterans groups and other communities with a strong Vietnamese presence.

University of Hawaii at Manoa (on behalf of Manoa)
Honolulu, HI
$30,000
To support publication, promotion, distribution, and related expenses for issues of Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing. Scheduled issues include The Spirit of Tahiti and New Theater of Asia, The Pacific, and the Americas.

University of Houston (on behalf of Arte Público Press)
Houston, TX
$40,000
To support the publication and promotion of Spanish language editions of U.S. Latino literature for young adults. The press will sponsor author readings and distribute teacher guides that include background information, author biographies, analyses of major themes, and bibliographies of further readings.

University of Iowa (on behalf of University of Iowa Press)
Iowa City, IA
$8,000
To support publication costs and related expenses for winning selections from the Iowa Short Fiction Award and John Simmons Short Fiction Award competitions. Launched in 1970, the awards are given to two emerging writers each year.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst (on behalf of Jubilat)
Amherst, MA
$5,000
To support the publication and promotion of issues of Jubilat. Each issue will feature contemporary poetry, translations, reprints, found pieces, lyric prose, and author interviews.

University of Missouri at Columbia (on behalf of Missouri Review)
Columbia, MO
$20,000
To support publication, promotion, and related expenses for issues of The Missouri Review. The magazine will enhance its Web site and target 50,000 potential readers through a national direct mail campaign.

University of Northern Iowa
Cedar Falls, IA
$10,000
To support publication costs and related expenses for issues of the North American Review. Reaching as many as 750 libraries across the country, the review will solicit new readers through paid advertisements in such publications as Poets & Writers, AWP Writers Chronicle, The Writer, and Communication Arts.

Verse, Inc. (on behalf of Verse Press)
Florence, MA
$7,500
To support the publication, promotion, and distribution of new books of poetry and creative nonfiction. Verse Press will schedule author reading tours around the country.

White Pine Press (White Pine Inc.)
Buffalo, NY
$25,000
To support the translation, publication, and promotion of titles in the World of Voices Publishing Project. White Pine will bring authors to Buffalo, New York, for week-long residencies in high schools and community centers in underserved urban areas.

Zephyr Press (Aspect, Inc.)
Brookline, MA
$10,000
To support the publication and promotion of books by Austrian, Chinese, and American writers. The press will market its Chinese and Austrian titles to international bookstores and cultural centers, and add an audio component to its Web site featuring authors reading their work.

Access to Artistic Excellence II

Academy of American Poets, Inc. (consortium)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support a consortium project to coordinate National Poetry Month. In partnership with the American Poetry & Literacy Project, the Academy will sponsor readings, discussions, and outreach programs designed to encourage Americans to make poetry a larger part of their lives.

Adirondack Community College
Queensbury, NY
$5,000
To support readings and workshops by nationally renowned and local writers for students and community members. The college will promote the readings through its Web site and newsletters.

Arizona State University (on behalf of Bilingual Review Press)
Tempe, AZ
$10,000
To support educational and outreach programs that promote the work of Latino poets. Activities will include a Web site to foster the exchange of information among poets, literary organizations, and the general public.

Association of Writers & Writing Programs
Fairfax, VA
$70,000
To support the production, printing, and distribution of The Writer's Chronicle and the AWP Job List, continued development of the AWP Web site, and the 2006 AWP Conference in Austin, Texas. AWP will promote the publications and annual conference through a 200,000-piece direct mail campaign.

Brooklyn Public Library Foundation
Brooklyn, NY
$10,000
To support Brooklyn Authors for Brooklyn Readers, a series of readings and interviews with WNYC radio talk show host Leonard Lopate. The library will make digital audio recordings of each program available on its Web site.

City University of New York Medgar Evers College
Brooklyn, NY
$10,000
To support the Eighth National Black Writers Conference. Proposed participants include Yusef Komunyakaa, Elizabeth Alexander, Edwidge Danticat, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., James McBride, Elizabeth Nunez, John Edgar Wideman, and Quincy Troupe.

Clapperstick Institute
Berkeley, CA
$5,000
To support the Central Valley Writers Conference, a free, two-day festival of readings and writing workshops in rural California. Proposed participants include Lawson Fusao Inada, Philip Levine, Gary Soto, Susan Kelley-DeWitt, Dixie Salazar, and Juan Felipe Herrera.

Collaboraction Theatre Company, Inc.
Chicago, IL
$5,000
To support a series of readings and performances featuring innovative presentations of authors and their work. Through light and sound design, props and costuming, readings, adaptations, and other activities, the events will explore the collaboration process and develop new models for the presentation of contemporary literature.

Council of Literary Magazines and Presses
New York, NY
$45,000
To support new and enhanced services for independent literary publishers. Scheduled activities will include an interactive Web site, a national conference, and technical assistance workshops.

Fishtrap, Inc.
Enterprise, OR
$10,000
To support writing workshops, discussions, and readings for residents of the rural Northwest. Themes for the events will include finding and establishing roots, and the changing ethnic composition of the West.

Gemini Series, Inc.
San Antonio, TX
$7,000
To support a series of classes, readings, and special events led by published writers and teachers. The University Without Walls program will offer classes for local writers and community members combining both on-site mentoring and distance learning.

Haleakala, Inc. (The Kitchen) (consortium)
New York, NY
$10,000
To support a consortium project of literary performances to showcase small, alternative literary publications and their writers. In partnership with Open City, Inc., The Kitchen will promote the monthly series to its mailing list of 17,000 individuals.

Hill-Stead Museum
Farmington, CT
$10,000
To support the Sunken Garden Poetry Festival, featuring summer readings and workshops. Scheduled poets include Edwina Trentham, Major Jackson, and Cortney Davis.

Humanities Tennessee
Nashville, TN
$10,000
To support The Southern Festival of Books: A Celebration of the Written Word in 2005. With an annual audience of 30,000, the free three-day festival will feature readings and panel sessions by more than 200 authors.

Inprint, Inc.
Houston, TX
$15,000
To support the 25th anniversary of the Inprint Brown Reading Series. Inprint will send brochures to more than 100 print and broadcast media groups and 5,400 households throughout Houston, and place posters and postcards at area bookstores, theaters, cafes, schools, libraries, and universities.

Intersection (consortium)
San Francisco, CA
$7,000
To support the consortium project Independent Press Spotlight, a monthly series of events designed to highlight the work of independent presses and literary journals from the Bay Area. In partnership with City Lights Foundation, the center will promote the series in its newsletter which is distributed to more than 11,500 individuals.

Just Buffalo Literary Center, Inc.
Buffalo, NY
$10,000
To support outreach programs throughout the greater Buffalo area. Proposed programs will include Poetry To Go, a series of readings at public venues; World of Voices, bringing international writers to western New York for week-long residencies; and If All of Buffalo Read the Same Book.

Literary Arts, Inc.
Portland, OR
$10,000
To support the Oregon Book Awards and Author Tour. As many as 30 finalists will conduct readings at sites throughout the state.

Loft, Inc.
Minneapolis, MN
$45,000
To support The Minnesota Program for Writers, which will provide workshops and mentors for emerging writers throughout the state. The program will feature The Mentor Series, which connects nationally recognized writers with local writers through workshops and one-on-one instruction; and Talking Volumes, presenting recent original work by advanced writers to audiences throughout the Upper Midwest.

Log Cabin Literary Center, Inc. (consortium)
Boise, ID
$15,000
To support the consortium project Readings and Conversations, a lecture and discussion series. In partnership with the Idaho Commission on the Arts, the center proposes to present Ursula Hegi, Chuck Palahniuk, Walter Mosley, Adrienne Rich, Rudolfo Anaya, and Mary Oliver.

Louisiana Library Foundation
Baton Rouge, LA
$5,000
To support the 4th annual Louisiana Book Festival. Featuring more than 100 poets, writers, and scholars, the festival will include panel discussions, readings, and writing workshops.

Marygrove College
Detroit, MI
$5,000
To support a day of readings and workshops with a critically renowned African American writer as part of the college's Contemporary American Authors Lecture Series. The program will be promoted through direct mailings to more than 200,000 students and community members.

Montana Committee for the Humanities
Missoula, MT
$15,000
To support the Montana Festival of the Book. More than 70 regional authors will read and discuss their work at selected venues, reaching an estimated audience of as many as 5,000.

Mountain Writers Series
Portland, OR
$15,000
To support readings, residencies, and special events throughout the Pacific Northwest region. Proposed authors include Belle Waring, ZZ Packer, Ron Carlson, David Guterson, Aimee Bender, Michael Ondaatje, and Marie Howe.

National Book Foundation, Inc.
New York, NY
$40,000
To support literary outreach programs that link National Book Award authors with underserved communities throughout the country. Programs will include American Voices, which brings writers to American Indian reservations nationwide, and a summer writing camp for inner-city teens and adults.

National Steinbeck Center (consortium)
Salinas, CA
$20,000
To support a consortium project titled The Steinbeck Chair, a community artist-in-residence program. In partnership with The Western Stage, the center will bring Japanese American poet Lawson Inada to Salinas for readings, workshops, and discussion groups.

PEN American Center, Inc.
New York, NY
$20,000
To support Border Crossings, a program that brings literature to underserved American audiences through readings and discussions. The project is designed to create public events featuring distinguished writers and connect under-recognized writers to their local communities through writing workshops and public readings.

PEN Center USA West
Los Angeles, CA
$15,000
To support Freedom to Write, a project to connect professional writers with emerging writers from underserved communities. The project will include Emerging Voices, a one-on-one mentorship program, and PEN in the Classroom, an arts instruction program for high school students.

Poetry Center of Chicago
Chicago, IL
$10,000
To support readings featuring nationally renowned writers, and Hands on Stanzas, a poets-in-the-schools-program. Students of the program receive an anthology of their work, free admission to readings, and opportunities to present their poetry at sites throughout the city.

Poetry Flash (consortium)
Berkeley, CA
$10,000
To support a consortium project for the 10th anniversary of the Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival. In partnership with The Ecology Center, the project will celebrate American literary imagination and its relationship to the natural world.

Poetry Project, Ltd.
New York, NY
$15,000
To support the Monday Night and Wednesday Night Reading and Performance Series, which will feature live presentations by more than 130 poets and performers. Writers under consideration include Wanda Coleman, Martin Espada, Kimoko Hahn, Sonia Sanchez, and Kevin Young.

Poetry Slam, Inc.
Whitmore Lake, MI
$10,000
To support the 16th Annual National Poetry Slam in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The four-day festival will showcase more than 350 poets from across the nation and abroad to an estimated audience of 15,000.

Poetry Society of America
New York, NY
$25,000
To support Poetry in Motion, a program that places poetry placards in public transportation systems throughout the country. Targeted cities will be expanded to include New Orleans, Kansas City, and Milwaukee.

Poets House, Inc.
New York, NY
$40,000
To support public events in the Re/VISION/aries series. The project will explore a range of visionary poets of the past, look at new frontiers being charted in contemporary poetry, and invite diverse audiences to reconsider their stance toward poetry.

Poets & Writers, Inc. (consortium)
New York, NY
$15,000
To support the consortium project Carried Voices: Writers & Books in the West. In partnership with the YMCA of Billings, the project will bring literary events to Oregon, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, and northern California.

Poets & Writers, Inc.
New York, NY
$80,000
To support the publication of Poets & Writers Magazine and the continued development and promotion of Poets & Writers' Web site. The Web site provides links to over 1,000 other Web sites dedicated to helping writers.

Richard Hugo House
Seattle, WA
$10,000
To support Project Writing Nation, a series of outreach programs designed to boost writing skills and interaction with literature. Programs will include Writers in Residence, the Zine Archive and Publishing Project, Hugo Huts, and the Annual Inquiry, a dialogue among writers and community members about a relevant literary and cultural issue.

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey-Camden Campus
Camden, NJ
$10,000
To support the 18th annual Rutgers-Camden Writers' Conference, a day of free writing workshops for residents of Camden and South Jersey. Proposed workshop leaders will include Terrance Hayes, Jewell Parker Rhodes, Rafael Yglesias, and Gretel Ehrlich.

San Francisco State University
San Francisco, CA
$10,000
To support the Poetry Center's Being a Poet youth residency project. A pilot program will bring renowned visiting writers to local classrooms, using current literary efforts in the Bay Area.

Seattle Arts & Lectures (consortium)
Seattle, WA
$10,000
To support a consortium project to present readings and lectures in Portland and Seattle. In partnership with Literary Arts, Inc., the organizations will mail promotional brochures to more than 23,000 individuals, and will run advertisements in local magazines and newspapers.

Texas A&M Research Foundation
College Station, TX
$20,000
To support Writing the Self and Community, a series of public readings and writing workshops organized by the journal Callaloo. The journal will sponsor summer workshops at Texas A&M University and additional workshops at historically black colleges and universities around the country.

Texas Book Festival
Austin, TX
$10,000
To support readings and panel discussions by prominent authors participating in the 2005 Texas Book Festival. The festival will feature such writers as Amy Tan, Anita Diamont, Rigoberto Gonzales, Scott Turow, Walter Mosley, and Ann Patchett.

University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ
$10,000
To support the Visiting Poets and Writers Reading and Lecture Series. Proposed artists will include John Ashbery, Nick Flynn, Nikki Giovanni, Garrett Hongo, Heather McHugh, Jane Miller, Tyehimba Jess, and José Emilio Pacheco.

University of Massachusetts at Amherst (on behalf of Juniper Initiative)
Amherst, MA
$10,000
To support the Juniper Initiative, featuring literary programming that reaches out to locales throughout the Connecticut River Valley. The initiative will feature a Visiting Writers Series and the Juniper Festival, an annual gathering of 400-600 readers, writers, editors, and independent publishers.

University of Mississippi Main Campus (on behalf of Center for Study of Southern Culture)
University, MS
$10,000
To support the 2006 Oxford Conference for the Book. Proposed participants include Sherman Alexie, George Saunders, Ted Genoways, Annie Proulx, Julia Reed, and Brad Watson.

University of Texas at Dallas (on behalf of American Literary Translators Association)
Richardson, TX
$20,000
To support services to enhance the professional development of literary translators. Activities will include an annual conference, the publication of issues of the Translation Review and Annotated Books Received, and continued development of a Web site.

Woodland Pattern, Inc.
Milwaukee, WI
$20,000
To support a series of readings, exhibits, and community workshops. Participating writers will include Ammiel Alcalay, Robert Creeley, Bei Dao, Naomi Shihab Nye, and Simon Ortiz.

Writer's Garret
Dallas, TX
$20,000
To support the improvement and expansion of the Writers Community and Mentorship Project, a professional development program for writers. Project participants will study with published writers in workshops, seminars, and classes, as well as through one-on-one mentorships.

Writers & Books, Inc.
Rochester, NY
$10,000
To support Literary Learning for a Lifetime, a series of educational and outreach programs. The project will offer readings, writing workshops, and online classes.

Writers Room, Inc.
New York, NY
$10,000
To support subsidized work space for emerging writers. The Writers Room is an urban writer's colony in New York City.

Writers' Room of Boston, Inc.
Boston, MA
$5,000
To support subsidized work space for emerging writers in Boston. The project will provide 40 authors with work space 24 hours a day.

Young Men's Christian Association of Billings
Billings, MT
$8,000
To support a series of readings by contemporary writers in Billings and surrounding rural communities. The project will include the High Plains BookFest, a festival featuring readings and discussions with more than 90 writers.

Young Men's Christian Associations of the United States of America
Chicago, IL
$50,000
To support the YMCA National Readings Tour and the YMCA National Writers Community, a writers-in-residence program. The tour will link local writers with nationally recognized writers for readings in communities such as Louisville, Orlando, Syracuse, Norwalk, and Portland.

Young Men's & Young Women's Hebrew Association (on behalf of 92nd Street Y)
New York, NY
$40,000
To support the Unterberg Poetry Center Reading Series. The project will feature readings, performances, literary tributes, and live interviews by established and emerging authors.

Literature Fellowships

Literature Fellowships in Poetry

The 2005 Literature Fellowships recognize the following writers of poetry, encouraging the production of new work by affording these writers the time and means to write. Each literature fellow receives a $20,000 award.

Literature Fellowships for Translation Projects in Poetry

Balcom, John J.
Monterey, CA
$10,000
To support the translation from Chinese of selected poems by Lo Fu. Born in China's Hunan Province, Lo Fu served in the military during the Sino-Japanese War (1939-45), began writing poetry in the 1940s, and moved to Taiwan in 1949. His 12 volumes of poetry include Death of a Stone Cell (1965), a long poem conceived while the poet was stationed on the island of Quemoy during its bombardment; Wound of Time (1981), which addresses China's literary tradition and history; and House of Moonlight, which examines the poet's nostalgia for a China to which he cannot return. Lo Fu's books have received major literary awards in Taiwan, including the China Times Literary Award and the National Literary Award.

John Balcom is an associate professor at the Monterey Institute. His translations include Death of a Stone Cell by Lo Fu, The Four Seasons by Xiang Yang, My Village by Wu Sheng, and Black and White by Lin Hengtai.

Cox, Wayne
Greenville, SC
$10,000
To support the translation from Catalan of selected poems by Piquel Martí i Pol (1929-2003). Cox will collaborate with his wife, Lourdes Manyé i Martí. Born in a small town in Barcelona, Martí i Pol wrote in a modest study overlooking the factory where he worked for half his life. One of the most widely read poets in contemporary Catalan literature, he published eight volumes of poetry, 24 volumes of translations, nine books of prose, several children's books, and song lyrics that appear in more than 40 CDs by well-known Spanish and Catalan musicians. In 1992, he was awarded the Gold Medal for Excellence in Fine Arts from the Spanish Ministry of Culture, and was nominated for the Nobel Prize for literature in 2000.

An associate professor at Anderson College, Wayne Cox translated Vacation Notebook with his wife in 1995. It remains the only volume of Martí i Pol's poetry available in English.

Crippen, Aaron
Houston, TX
$10,000
To support the translation from Chinese of selected poems by Gu Cheng (1956-1993). Gu Cheng is one of the most important voices to emerge from China's Cultural Revolution. As a boy, he witnessed scenes of Beijing street violence including the ransacking of his home and confiscation of his family's books. He and his family were sent to the countryside to raise pigs; there he began to write poetry. He arrived on the literary scene during the Democracy Wall movement of 1979, publishing with Communist China's first underground magazine, Today. Idolized by Chinese youth, Gu Cheng was always viewed with suspicion by the Chinese government. He took up permanent residence in New Zealand in 1987, and committed suicide there in 1993. Currently pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Houston,

Aaron Crippen has published numerous translations in such journals as Northwest Quarterly, Oklahoma Review, Nimrod, Mid-American Review, and Manoa.

de Jager, Marjolijn
Stamford, CT
$10,000
To support the translation from Dutch of The School by the Sea by Huub Beursken (1950-). Beursken is a painter, translator, critic, and writer. He has published more than 30 books, including volumes of poetry, novels, essays, and plays, and is currently a poetry critic for a daily newspaper and the weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. The School by the Sea is one of his more recent works. It shows the influence of American poet William Carlos Williams on Beursken's work, while also offering colorful, sensual images that betray Beursken's interest in the visual arts.

Born in Borneo, Indonesia, when the nation was still a colony of The Netherlands (the Dutch East Indies), Marjolijn de Jager grew up with Dutch as her first language. She spent her adolescent years in Amsterdam and immigrated to the U.S. in 1958. She currently teaches Dutch at New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies.

Fox, Leonard
Charleston, SC
$20,000
To support the translation from Malagasy of Jean-Joseph Rabearivelo's Almost Dreams (1934), Translated from the Night (1935), and from French of his Old Songs from the Imerina Lands, a collection of translations and adaptations of traditional Malagasy oral poetry (published posthumously, 1939). Considered the most important 20th-century poet of Madagascar, Rabearivelo wrote in both Malagasy and French. He was deeply influenced by the hainteny tradition, a complex form of oral poetry considered the quintessential expression of traditional Malagasy creativity. Almost Dreams and Translated from the Night represent a merging of hainteny with French literary genres. Despite his devotion to the traditional arts of his homeland, Rabearivelo felt cut off from a literary life of France and suffered a period of severe depression after his daughter's death. He committed suicide in 1937 before his 40th birthday.

Leonard Fox works as an independent translator for publishers and other private clients throughout the U.S. His translations include Hainteny: The Traditional Poetry of Madagascar, the first study in English of Malagasy traditional poetry.

Johnson, Kent L.
Freeport, IL
$10,000
To support the translation from Spanish of The Night, a book-length poem by Bolivian writer Jaime Saenz (1921-1986). Johnson will collaborate with Forrest Gander. One of Bolivia's leading writers of the 20th century, Saenz lived his whole life in La Paz, Bolivia, seldom venturing beyond the city. For much of his adult life, he embodied the late romantic idea of the poete maudit - apocalyptic and occult in his politics, a frequenter of slum taverns, insistently nocturnal in his artistic affairs, and the ongoing subject of rumor and gossip. Published in 1984, The Night was Saenz's last poem. Composed in four parts, the poem is a circular journey touching on the themes of alcoholism, identity, and Bolivian history.

Kent Johnson currently teaches at Highland Community College. His translations include Immanent Visitor: Selected Poems of Jaime Saenz, published in 2002.

Keys, Kerry S.
Boiling Springs, PA
$20,000
To support the translation from Lithuanian of a book-length selection of poetry by Laurynas Katkus. In addition to newer pieces, many of the poems included will be from two previously untranslated books, Voices, Notes (1998) and Diving Lessons (2003). Born in 1972, Katkus has had the unique experience of writing under both Soviet control of Lithuania, and then as a citizen of a newly liberated nation. Much of his work, therefore, has been informed by two different social and historical worlds, and is striking because of its maturity and intellectual range. In addition to his poetry, he has worked as a radio journalist and literary editor, and has translated the works of e.e. cummings, Susan Sontag, and others.

Kerry Shawn Keys is a widely published translator and author who divides his time between Pennsylvania and Lithuania. He has published numerous books and anthologies of both poetry and prose, and his work has appeared in many American and international journals and magazines.

Lembke, Janet
Stauton, VA
$20,000
To support the retranslation from Latin of Virgil's four-book Georgics. Virgil's Georgics, the second of his three poetic works, comprises 2,172 lines of Latin hexameters on farming. Book I tells of crops and the celestial signs that mark the times for planting and harvesting; Book II covers trees and grapevines; Book III explores the breeding, rearing, and training of livestock; and Book IV concerns bees. Its primary themes, however, are the labor that farming requires and the lessons to be learned from a pastoral life. Most 20th-century translations of the Georgics are out of print, hard to come by, or written in British English. This project will add a new translation in American English with the goal of reaching general readers interested in poetry and ancient history, as well as gardening and farming.

Janet Lembke is a writer, translator, and naturalist. Her translations include Euripides's Electra and Hecuba; Aeschylus's Persians and Suppliants; and Bronze and Iron: Old Latin Poetry from Its Beginnings to 100 B.C.

Porter, William A.
Port Townsend, WA
$10,000
To support the translation from classical Chinese of the poetry of Wei Ying-wu. Born in 737, Wei Ying-wu served in many different government roles and was known for his honesty and concern for the people under his care. After his retirement from service, he chose to live in a Buddhist temple instead of an estate commensurate with his status. It was not until the Sung dynasty (960-1278) that he was recognized as one of the great poets of the T'ang period, especially in terms of his ability to describe landscapes and natural settings, and to conjure the moods of seclusion and serenity. His poetry is also distinctive because of its concern with the lives of ordinary people. Wei Ying-wu has been considered for the last 1,000 years as one of the T'ang Dynasty's great poetic masters, yet remains unknown in the West. This project renders into English about one-third (150-200) of his surviving poems.

William Porter, who writes under the pseudonym Red Pine, first began translating Chinese poetry in 1973, while living in a Buddhist monastery in Taiwan. The author of numerous translations, his most recent anthology of China's best-known T'ang and Sung poetry, Poems of the Masters, was published in 2003. Over the years, he has received many honors for his work and has produced more than one thousand radio programs about Chinese culture.

Selby, Martha Ann
Cambridge, MA
$20,000
To support the retranslation from classical Tamil of Ainkurunuru, a Fourth-century anthology of love poems. Commissioned by a Cera-dynasty king, the Ainkurunu is one of eight anthologies of ancient Tamil verse. Discovered in the late 19th century bundled in a basket inside a South Indian Saiva monastery, it was first published in Madras in 1902. The Ainkurunu contains the work of five poets, each of whom composed 100 poems devoted to one of five "landscapes" of reciprocal love (jealous quarreling, tortured separation and lament, clandestine love, abject separation, and domestic bliss). Only one complete translation of the text has been published in English, and it is marred by inaccuracies and outdated usages.

Martha Ann Selby is an associate professor of Asian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Her previous translations include Grow Long, Blessed Night: Love Poems from Classical India, and A Circle of Six Seasons: Old Tamil, Prakrit, and Sanskrit Verse.

Shields, Andrew
Switzerland, FO
$20,000
To support the translation from French of selected poems by Jacques Reda. Born in Luneville, France, in 1929, Réda currently lives in Paris. This project includes poems from nine volumes published since 1968. Réda's poetry differs from a large majority of his contemporaries as his work features scenes from everyday life rather than abstract realms, and his work focuses almost entirely on traditional forms, using alexandrine lines and rhymed structures often organized as stanzas. In addition to his poetry, Réda has also published 11 volumes of prose and has been a contributor to Jazz Magazine since 1963. No English volume of his work is currently in print.

After receiving his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Pennsylvania in 1995, Andrew Shields has been an English language teacher in Switzerland. An accomplished translator of both French and German, he has had his work published in journals such as Poetry, Marlboro Review, and Grand Street.

Sorkin, Adam
Havertown, PA
$20,000
To support the translation from Romanian of Magda Cârneci's book of poems, Chaosmos. Born in 1955, Cârneci is a widely respected poet, essayist, and art critic. She has published five volumes of poetry, several volumes of art criticism, and has translated Seamus Heany, Marianne Moore and Christopher Merrill into Russian. Chaosmos (combining chaos and cosmos) was originally published in 1992. Containing sensual, mystical poems, it was seen as a breakthrough work in its introduction of elements of daily life into poetic language. As both a poet and critic, Cârneci is seen as an integral literary figure in the post-communist Balkans.

Adam Sorkin is Distinguished Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, Delaware County, where he has taught since 1978. He has translated more than 135 contemporary Romanian poets and published 19 books.

Stewart, Steven
Reno, NV
$20,000
To support the translation from Spanish of Angel Crespo's Poemas en Prosa 1965-1994. Crespo was 69 years old when he died in 1995, having written more than 30 books of poetry and 20 volumes of translation (including Dante and Petrarch). He studied law in Madrid, was labeled a traitor by Spain's Franco regime, and was driven into political exile in 1967 (he would later return to Spain in the 1980s). In the 1940s, Crespo co-founded the Postism movement in Spain, which emphasized imaginative play on language, and has had far-reaching influence on contemporary Spanish poetry. Poemas en Prosa 1965-1994 collects all of Crespo's prose poems into a single volume.

Steven Stewart teaches in the English Department at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he is a Writing Specialist. He holds his Ph.D. in Creative Writing from Florida State University, and his translations have appeared in numerous journals and magazines including Harper's, Crazyhorse, and jubilat. His book of translations of the work of Rafael Perez Estrada, Devoured by the Moon, was recently published by Hanging Loose Press.

Tkacz, Virlana
New York, NY
$20,000
To support the translation from Ukrainian of Serhiy Zhadan's two most recent books of poetry. Tkacz will collaborate with Wanda Phipps. Born in 1974, Zhadan is one of the most popular poets of the post-independence generation in Ukraine. His work deals with the disillusionment, difficulties, and ironies that the collapse of the Soviet Union has brought to the country, and is widely read in literary circles and by the younger generation. Tkacz and Phipps will translate Ballads of War and Reconstruction (2001) and History of Culture at the Turn of This Century (2003).

Virlana Tkacz is a translator, writer, and theater director, and currently serves as the artistic director of Yara Arts Group, a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre. With her long-time collaborator, Phipps, she has translated Ukrainian poetry of more than 20 poets, and they received the National Theatre Translation Fund Award for their translation of Lesia Ukrainka's verse drama The Forest Song.

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