Chaparral from the updrafts California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc. serving California poets for over 65 years Volume 67, No. 4 • May-June, 2006 President Richard Wilbur wins Lilly Prize James Shuman, PSJ Poet Richard Wilbur is the winner of the 2006 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Poetry First Vice President David Lapierre, PCR Foundation recently announced. He received $100,000. The judges were poets Linda Second Vice President Gregerson, Don Paterson, and Christian Wiman, who Katharine Wilson, RF also edits Poetry magazine. The annual prize “honors He is also the recipient of the Wallace Stevens Th ird Vice President a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments Award, the Gold Medal for Poetry from the Ameri- Dan Saucedo, Tw warrant extraordinary recognition.” can Academy of Arts and Letters, two Guggenheim Fellowships, and the Bollingen Translation Prize. In Fourth Vice President Wilbur’s books of poetry include the Pulitzer 1987 he was named the second poet laureate of the Donna Honeycutt, Ap Prize-winning New and Collected Poems (Harcourt United States. Treasurer Brace Jovanovich, 1988); The Mind-Reader: New Roberta Bearden, PSJ Poems (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1976); Things The annual Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, administered Recording Secretary of This World (Harcourt, Brace, 1956), which won by the Poetry Foundation, has awarded over a million Lee Collins, Tw the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and dollars since it was established in 1986. Past recipi- Corresponding Secretary The Beautiful Changes and Other Poems (Reynal ents include Yusef Komunyakaa, Philip Levine, W. Dorothy Marshall, Tw and Hitchcock, 1947). S. Merwin, Adrienne Rich, and Kay Ryan. Members-at-Large Chair Frances Yordan, FG Linda Gregg wins PEN/ Anne Pierson Wiese receives Monthly Contest Chair Voelcker Award for Poetry the 2006 Walt Whitman Award Cleo Griffi th, PSJ The Academy of American Poets announced on Established by a bequest from Hunce Voelcker, the Convention Chair, 2007 May 15 that Anne Pierson Wiese has won the 2006 PEN/Voelcker Award for Poetry was presented for David Lapierre, PCR Walt Whitman Award for her fi rst book-length collec- the seventh time on the evening of Monday, May 22, Convention Program Chair tion of poems, Floating City, which will be published 2006 at the Walter Reade Theater at Lincoln Center Dan Saucedo, Tw in the spring of 2007 by Louisiana State University in New York. It was given to Linda Gregg. Annual Contest Chair Press. The winning manuscript was chosen by Kay Lisabeth Shuman, PSJ The award is given to a poet whose distinguished Ryan from over 1,250 entries in an open competition. Youth Contest Chair and growing body of work to date represents a notable The Academy of American Poets has awarded Ms. Elaine E. Harper, Tw and accomplished presence in American literature. Wiese a $5,000 cash prize and will purchase copies Children’s Poetry Fair and The poet honored by the award is one for whom the of her book for distribution to its members. She will Education Committee Chair exceptional promise seen in earlier work has been also receive a one-month residency at the Vermont Linda McCarty, VW fulfi lled, and who continues to mature with each suc- Studio Center. The runner-up was Kevin McFadden cessive volume of poetry. The award is given in even- Publications Chair for his manuscript Hardscrabble. numbered years and carries a stipend of $5,000. James Shuman, PSJ On selecting Ms. Wiese’s manuscript for the Roster and ByLaws Chair In their citation, the judges write: “Linda Gregg award, Kay Ryan wrote: Jeremy Shuman, PSJ has been writing poetry for over forty years. A vision- This remarkable book is proof that a light hand is Archivist and Librarian ary poet in a world that is ‘always too much with us,’ the most masterful. Anne Pierson Wiese’s poems Katharine Wilson, RF Ms. Gregg has never taken on a full-time job, prefer- read so easily and pleasurably that one hardly real- Millennium Poetry ring to devote herself to poetry, and while she has on izes one has been confi dently moved to a slightly C. Joy Haas, RF occasion taught at the University of California, Iowa, different dimension, a world resembling ours but and Princeton, she would rather be walking down the Web Site better observed, and quieter — in the best sense. Old Byzantine trail on Paros in Greece or along the www.ChaparralPoets.org Wiese understands the virtue of restraint — how Indonesian shores of Pangaritis. In each of her books the right word, the exact detail, clarity of form, FEDERATION (Too Bright to See, Alma, The Sacraments of Desire, invite the mind instead of stunning it. This is com- of Chosen by the Lion, Things and Flesh, and In the pletely accomplished poetry of a very brave kind, Middle Distance), daily life is refreshed by the return daring to be immodestly good — modestly. CHAPARRAL to a mythic sublime, honoring a realm where solitude Anne Pierson Wiese was born in Minneapolis, and solidarity are joined in a precarious dance.” poets Minnesota, and grew up in Brooklyn, New York. She Judges for the 2006 award were Michael Hof- is a graduate of Amherst College and the New York CALIFORNIA inc. mann, Timothy Liu, and Vijay Seshadri. continued on page two: ‘Wiese’ Copyright 2006 California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc. Chaparral Updrafts, Volume 67, No. 4, May-June 2006. All rights reserved. Poets retain rights to their poems. Copyright 2006 California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc. All rights reserved. Poets retain rights to their poems. Chaparral Monthly Contest Winners updrafts on the topic of With a Song in My Heart The Silver Bird Editor & Publisher .......James Shuman 2521 Meadow Rue Drive Oh, perfect singer—white feathered bird, Modesto, CA 95355-3910 silver in sudden fl ight— 209-523-6954 FAX 209-521-8778 startled by me—creating you. Our Song Treasurer ...................Roberta Bearden The world is a cage. Let it hold you. P O Box 1750, Empire, CA 95319 Scoring the staff, invisible 209-522-9600 Even I am a cage. notes imprint tomorrow— Corresponding Secretary Come in here with me, muted or mellow— they ............................Dorothy Marshall fl ow in measured moments, I will hold the bars open— to be lifted up and owned. 430 Eleventh St, Pomona, CA 91766 feel your heart beating 888-308-7488 We never played musical Please send news and information items to when your wings chairs or let boom box beats the editor one month in advance of intended fold into my hand. and obscure words publication date. break the rhythm of For questions involving membership, either I will sing you my lost song a song long sung. new or renewal, please contact the treasurer. and you will emulate Melodies, standing alone, blend Be sure to visit our new web site: as we face a future hanging on and I will pretend we belong together http://www.ChaparralPoets.org a song yet to be sung. We hear in this vast cage of existence. its sweet notes repeated, a duet in time. Look how my mirror trains you… Wiese wins Whitman how the sky lifts you… continued from page one —Cleo Kocol, Roseville, CA —Third Place, April University Graduate Writing Workshop, and Don’t you remember anything, currently lives and works in New York City. poor broken childhood, reading about this…? Wiese received a 2005 Fellowship in Poetry —Joyce Odam, Sacramento, CA from the New York Foundation for the Arts —First Place, April and was a winner of the 2004 “Discovery” / The Nation Poetry Contest. Wiese’s poems have appeared in many journals, including The Nocturne Nation, Prarie Schooner, Raritan, Atlanta Re- view, The Alaska Quarterly Review, Quarterly What wakes me isn’t sound West, Rattapallax, The Carolina Quarterly, but moonlight. I wander The Hawai’i Pacifi c Review, and elsewhere. through the rooms, the cat Her work will also appear in the anthology trailing, her purr loud Broken Land: Poems of Brooklyn. in the brilliant silence, her shadow huge on the wall. Kay Ryan was born in California in 1945 and grew up in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. She received both a bachelor’s So often I sleep and wake and master’s degree from UCLA. Ryan has published and sleep, dreams dissolving several collections of poetry, including The Niagara like water seeping River (Grove Press, 2005); Say Uncle (2000); Elephant Rocks (1996); Flamingo Watching (1994), which was into sand a fi nalist for both the Lamont Poetry Selection and beneath a stream. the Lenore Marshall Prize; Strangely Marked Metal (1985); and Dragon Acts to Dragon Ends (1983). As I slip back to our bedroom, Ryan’s awards include the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, a Guggenheim fellowship, an Ingram Merrill Award, a wood smoke drifts through fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, the screen. I am tempted the Union League Poetry Prize, the Maurice English to wake you. Poetry Award, and three Pushcart Prizes. Her work has been selected four times for The Best American Poetry —Arlene L. Mandell, Santa Rosa, CA and was included in The Best of the Best American —Second Place, April Poetry 1988 – 1997. Ryan was elected a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets in 2006. Since 1971, she has lived in Marin County in California. PAGE 2 Chaparral Updrafts Copyright 2006 California Federation of Chaparral Poets, Inc. All rights reserved. Poets retain rights to their poems. You will want to save this page! 2006 CFCP, Inc. Monthly Contests Except where otherwise indicated, poems are limited to 28 lines of text. All forms accepted for all categories.