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.

King Me
Poems

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

Song
Poems

                My mother

gathers gladiolas. The gladness

is fractured. As when

the globe with its thousand mirrors

cracked the light. How

it hoarded sight: all the stolen perspectives

and the show of light

they shot around us: so that

down the dark hall the ghosts danced

with us: down the dark hall

the broken angels.

Let Me Clear My Throat
Essays

By the time he was infamous enough to sell out bullfighting arenas, the Caruso C was a sort of burlesque number.  He would inch to it from the frequencies below, nearly embrace the note, and then flat a bit before trumpeting, C! with full tenor fury. Toscanini chided him for grandstanding, but this in-and-out tease worked well with German and Latin American houses, which particularly enjoyed the punishment of a loud flirtation.

Nat Turner in Jerusalem
A Play

NAT TURNER

What do you mean by your copyright?

The right to copy?

 

THOMAS R. GRAY

Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.

 

NAT

And who can grant such a right?

 

THOMAS

The copyright office, naturally.

 

NAT

...

 

THOMAS

It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.

 

NAT

And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?

 

THOMAS

Uh,

No.

The Pleasing Hour
A Novel

The family lined up to kiss me. With Guillaume and then Odile, I aimed for the wrong cheek and ended up butting noses with Guillaume and nearly kissing Odile on the lips, which seemed to horrify her and her profound sense of propriety. Before her turn, Lola told me, “Right cheek first,” which clarified everything, and I was prepared for Nicole. No one else seemed to be bothered that Nicole wore no shirt. As we kissed, I smelled makeup and removers, nail polish and toothpaste, and the lingering odor of her younger children—sour milk and butter cookies.

 

THE PLEASING HOUR © 1999 by Lily King; reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Atlantic, Inc.

Reading the Water
Poems

A planeload of insurance salesmen, blown off course,

Discovers a tribe who believe an elephant-

In-the-distance is the same size as a gnat-in-the-eye.

 

This should cause trouble in a hunt. But tribespeople

Merely flick the pesky trumpeter away,

While the gnat – felled by clouds of arrows – feeds

 

The tribe for weeks. Faced by a lion, tribesmen run

Until its head is small enough to squish. Muscular

Warriors are found dead, pierced by mosquito-needles

 

Ear-to-ear. Everything here is as it seems.

The stick-in-water, drawn out, remains crooked

As a boomerang. Mountain and molehill are identical.

 

Tragedies that crush Americans – love’s waterbed

Popping, parents dropped into the scalding pot of age-

Require only that the sufferer walk away. “It’s not so awful,”

 

Tribal healers say. “With every step, troubles shrink;

Their howling dwindles to a buzz; their fangs shrivel to the size

Of pollen grains. Reach out. Brush them away. You see?”

King Me
Poems

The deaf hear only in their dreams. I am sure

I can hear nothing. My how the mountain leaps

towards the sea and the little village below.

Who sang for the white plate my father tossed

at my sister’s shadow? What funeral is held

for a broken compass? When cutting onions,

leave a candle lit somewhere near an old man

holding his wife in a napkin. In the torn light of evening,

there is enough treason for everybody. Excuse me,

I should say something about the beauty of cranes.

Once in a sycamore I tossed a brick at a boy’s head.

It opened like the sea. I think I saw a crane.

Song
Poems

                My mother

gathers gladiolas. The gladness

is fractured. As when

the globe with its thousand mirrors

cracked the light. How

it hoarded sight: all the stolen perspectives

and the show of light

they shot around us: so that

down the dark hall the ghosts danced

with us: down the dark hall

the broken angels.

Let Me Clear My Throat
Essays

By the time he was infamous enough to sell out bullfighting arenas, the Caruso C was a sort of burlesque number.  He would inch to it from the frequencies below, nearly embrace the note, and then flat a bit before trumpeting, C! with full tenor fury. Toscanini chided him for grandstanding, but this in-and-out tease worked well with German and Latin American houses, which particularly enjoyed the punishment of a loud flirtation.

Nat Turner in Jerusalem
A Play

NAT TURNER

What do you mean by your copyright?

The right to copy?

 

THOMAS R. GRAY

Yes, well, the right to publish and distribute, which involves copying necessarily.

 

NAT

And who can grant such a right?

 

THOMAS

The copyright office, naturally.

 

NAT

...

 

THOMAS

It protects the rights of the man who has done the work.

 

NAT

And is God not a sufficient witness of our works?

 

THOMAS

Uh,

No.

The Pleasing Hour
A Novel

The family lined up to kiss me. With Guillaume and then Odile, I aimed for the wrong cheek and ended up butting noses with Guillaume and nearly kissing Odile on the lips, which seemed to horrify her and her profound sense of propriety. Before her turn, Lola told me, “Right cheek first,” which clarified everything, and I was prepared for Nicole. No one else seemed to be bothered that Nicole wore no shirt. As we kissed, I smelled makeup and removers, nail polish and toothpaste, and the lingering odor of her younger children—sour milk and butter cookies.

 

THE PLEASING HOUR © 1999 by Lily King; reprinted with the permission of the publisher, Grove Atlantic, Inc.

Reading the Water
Poems

A planeload of insurance salesmen, blown off course,

Discovers a tribe who believe an elephant-

In-the-distance is the same size as a gnat-in-the-eye.

 

This should cause trouble in a hunt. But tribespeople

Merely flick the pesky trumpeter away,

While the gnat – felled by clouds of arrows – feeds

 

The tribe for weeks. Faced by a lion, tribesmen run

Until its head is small enough to squish. Muscular

Warriors are found dead, pierced by mosquito-needles

 

Ear-to-ear. Everything here is as it seems.

The stick-in-water, drawn out, remains crooked

As a boomerang. Mountain and molehill are identical.

 

Tragedies that crush Americans – love’s waterbed

Popping, parents dropped into the scalding pot of age-

Require only that the sufferer walk away. “It’s not so awful,”

 

Tribal healers say. “With every step, troubles shrink;

Their howling dwindles to a buzz; their fangs shrivel to the size

Of pollen grains. Reach out. Brush them away. You see?”