Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize: Mark Strand & Chris Andrews (2012)

This article is about the eponymous poetry prize. For other uses, see Anthony Hecht (disambiguation).

For the O.B. Hardison Poetry Series 2012, 2011 Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize winner Chris Andrews and prize judge Mark Strand read from their work on November 19, 2012 in the Folger's Elizabethan Theatre. They were introduced by Philip Hoy, editor-in-chief of The Waywiser Press, which awards the prize each year to a poet who has published no more than one poetry book. (The award includes publication and $3,000.)

Mark Strand

Mark Strand’s work is at times surreal and at times poignantly focused. A former Poet Laureate and former Chancellor of The Academy of American Poets, he is recognized as one of America’s premier poets. Strand authored numerous collections of poetry, including Pulitzer Prize-winning Blizzard of One, Man and Camel, Dark Harbor, The Story of Our Lives, and Reasons for Moving. He also published several books of prose, three children’s books, and various editions and translations. Among his numerous prizes and awards are the Bollingen Prize, three grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and fellowships from The Academy of American Poets, the MacArthur Foundation, and the Ingram Merrill Foundation. He teaches English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University.

Chris Andrews

Chris Andrews received the 2011 Hecht Poetry Prize for his second collection of poems, Lime Green Chair. His first collection, Cut Lunch, won the Anne Elder and Wesley Michel Wright prizes. In addition, he has garnered several awards for his literary translations, which include César Aira's Varamo. An honored linguist, he is also the Australian correspondent for the French-English Poetry Festival. He presently holds a position at the Writing and Society Research Centre at University of Western Sydney.

Strand is “one of our most deeply enjoyable poets.” —Publishers Weekly on Blizzard of One

from "The Mist Lifts"

So this is how the mist lifts in a city that some gifted children consider the pits while others at the cutting edge of retro throw a pinch of wishbone ash into the mix; it lifts like this off a mirror-still river where, as it is everywhere, cruelty is unmistakable as a triangle, but midwinter's riddled with brilliant days like this.