Whiting Award Winners
Since 1985, the Foundation has supported creative writing through the Whiting Awards, which are given annually to ten emerging writers in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and drama.
Some of the subjects covered during Gamal’s hour of talk: the great friendship they will have; the difficulty Gamal has accepting Ib’s name—he prefers to call him Ibrahim; the movies of Kaleemt Ishtwud; the language of Arabic, which Gamal will make Ib speak like one good Arab Man, which Gamal says is the language everyone in the world knows; felucca rides on the Nile; the English language, the greatest language on earth, which Ib will teach Gamal to speak like on good English Man; this great beauty the singer Paula Abdul, but what is she a servant of (abdul means “servant of”) and how can we make her visit our house which we will build together near the Pyramids; the Pyramids, which Gamal feels one moment are the great monuments of the world we know, the next moment, garbage heaps, where bad people sell bad things that do not make Egypt look good; the right of a man to marry a woman for a few weeks, a very necessary right, men are much stronger and fairer this way, men grow beards more quickly, men walk in straight lines.
He grimaced out at the fields and she saw the deep elevens etched between his eyes, eyes that were the color of the sky and just as distant. He looked to her like a thing seized, as if all his old self had been suckered up from his body proper and forced into the small, staring space of his eyes. She did not like those new blinkless eyes of his and she did not like the way his words all collapsed in his new way of talking. As if his tongue could not bear the weight of words any longer.
“You aren’t one of those voodoo inspectors, are you? Don’t need to see anything, you just feel it, right? I heard Jimmy make jokes about you witch doctors.”
She says, “Intuitionist.” Lila Mae rubs the ballpoint of the pen to get the ink flowing. The W of her initials belongs to a ghost alphabet.
The super grins. “If that’s the game you want to play,” he says, “I guess you got me on the ropes.” There are three twenty-dollar bills in his oily palm. He leans over to Lila Mae and places the money in her breast pocket. Pats it down. “I haven’t ever seen a woman elevator inspector before, let alone a colored one, but I guess they teach you all the same tricks.”
Hours later, Temperance is leading a “Mommyhood: The Christian Way” workshop for unwed mothers. She takes deep breaths, still trying to channel her mother’s certitude that this child was meant to be, ordained. The mothers around her are lollipop young, mainly from the projects, and chockablock with children. She can almost look at them now and not hurt. Before, her ovaries would ache just to be in this room with so many women who seemed to get pregnant if you so much as blew on them. Shanice begat Shanice Jr. begat Lativia begat LaRenée begat Jamelia begat Jameka. Begat, begetting, begotten.
Temperance had shared these thorny thoughts with Andrew once—confession, allegedly good for the soul and all. She had whispered that night, but her grievances somehow echoed in the cloistered silence of their bedroom. Why, Andrew, why? Why would God bless them and not her? Hadn’t she done everything right, everything expected? Waited to get her JD, her MRS. Why was she still waiting on her happily ever after? Andrew knuckled tears from her cheeks, his eyes filled with such tender disappointment, as he reminded her she was better than that, a woman of God—above such pretty, elitist notions. She bowed her head then. She listened as he prayed.
But sometimes, Lord. Sometimes.
I’ll make you a saint
from an unblemished code book
that must be read
in a German restaurant
where beer is served in glasses
wrapped in brown leather
when the cuckoo strikes twelve
this will be the moment
of ascension
I love American newspapers, the way each section
is folded independently and believes it owns
the world. There’s this brief item in the inter-
national pages: the Chinese government has posted
signs in Tiananmen Square; forbidding laughter.
I’m sure the plastic surgeon would approve, he’d say
the Chinese will look young much longer, their faces
unnaturally smooth, but what I see (although
no photograph accompanies the story) is laughter
busting inside them. I go back to the sports section
and a closeup of a rookie in mind-swing, his face
keeping all the wrong emotions in check.
Some of the subjects covered during Gamal’s hour of talk: the great friendship they will have; the difficulty Gamal has accepting Ib’s name—he prefers to call him Ibrahim; the movies of Kaleemt Ishtwud; the language of Arabic, which Gamal will make Ib speak like one good Arab Man, which Gamal says is the language everyone in the world knows; felucca rides on the Nile; the English language, the greatest language on earth, which Ib will teach Gamal to speak like on good English Man; this great beauty the singer Paula Abdul, but what is she a servant of (abdul means “servant of”) and how can we make her visit our house which we will build together near the Pyramids; the Pyramids, which Gamal feels one moment are the great monuments of the world we know, the next moment, garbage heaps, where bad people sell bad things that do not make Egypt look good; the right of a man to marry a woman for a few weeks, a very necessary right, men are much stronger and fairer this way, men grow beards more quickly, men walk in straight lines.
He grimaced out at the fields and she saw the deep elevens etched between his eyes, eyes that were the color of the sky and just as distant. He looked to her like a thing seized, as if all his old self had been suckered up from his body proper and forced into the small, staring space of his eyes. She did not like those new blinkless eyes of his and she did not like the way his words all collapsed in his new way of talking. As if his tongue could not bear the weight of words any longer.
“You aren’t one of those voodoo inspectors, are you? Don’t need to see anything, you just feel it, right? I heard Jimmy make jokes about you witch doctors.”
She says, “Intuitionist.” Lila Mae rubs the ballpoint of the pen to get the ink flowing. The W of her initials belongs to a ghost alphabet.
The super grins. “If that’s the game you want to play,” he says, “I guess you got me on the ropes.” There are three twenty-dollar bills in his oily palm. He leans over to Lila Mae and places the money in her breast pocket. Pats it down. “I haven’t ever seen a woman elevator inspector before, let alone a colored one, but I guess they teach you all the same tricks.”
Hours later, Temperance is leading a “Mommyhood: The Christian Way” workshop for unwed mothers. She takes deep breaths, still trying to channel her mother’s certitude that this child was meant to be, ordained. The mothers around her are lollipop young, mainly from the projects, and chockablock with children. She can almost look at them now and not hurt. Before, her ovaries would ache just to be in this room with so many women who seemed to get pregnant if you so much as blew on them. Shanice begat Shanice Jr. begat Lativia begat LaRenée begat Jamelia begat Jameka. Begat, begetting, begotten.
Temperance had shared these thorny thoughts with Andrew once—confession, allegedly good for the soul and all. She had whispered that night, but her grievances somehow echoed in the cloistered silence of their bedroom. Why, Andrew, why? Why would God bless them and not her? Hadn’t she done everything right, everything expected? Waited to get her JD, her MRS. Why was she still waiting on her happily ever after? Andrew knuckled tears from her cheeks, his eyes filled with such tender disappointment, as he reminded her she was better than that, a woman of God—above such pretty, elitist notions. She bowed her head then. She listened as he prayed.
But sometimes, Lord. Sometimes.
I’ll make you a saint
from an unblemished code book
that must be read
in a German restaurant
where beer is served in glasses
wrapped in brown leather
when the cuckoo strikes twelve
this will be the moment
of ascension
I love American newspapers, the way each section
is folded independently and believes it owns
the world. There’s this brief item in the inter-
national pages: the Chinese government has posted
signs in Tiananmen Square; forbidding laughter.
I’m sure the plastic surgeon would approve, he’d say
the Chinese will look young much longer, their faces
unnaturally smooth, but what I see (although
no photograph accompanies the story) is laughter
busting inside them. I go back to the sports section
and a closeup of a rookie in mind-swing, his face
keeping all the wrong emotions in check.