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.
Daddy shook the box, kicked it, mumbled under his breath something that sounded like it had teeth. He came from around the house with a shovel and dragged it behind him, along with the box, to the woods. He would bury my dog, I thought.
“He has something of mine,” the man said.
With that, she turned to look at him. “Who are you?” she finally demanded. “Sergio called me to come pick him up, not you.”
“You don’t know me?” His voice pitched higher, edging toward frustration, maybe anger. “You don’t know who I am?”
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t.”
“He’s got my heart,” the man said, melodramatically holding his hands across his chest, but he sneered a bit when he said it. “He’s got a lot of things I want back.”
Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.
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.
“Malcolm is dead,” Eddie kept hearing as he raced to the shop. As he got closer, he saw the flashing lights, and the siren that had been only an eerie, barely audible musical accompaniment to his thoughts began to register as belonging to an ambulance and not as being a regular plant alarm. He knew that he would not cry no matter how awful it was; he never cried. That was one thing he never had to worry about. If one of them had to be killed here, it was better that it was Malcolm—because if Eddie had been killed, Malcolm would have cried like a baby.
There’s a kind of sky below the ocean –
a field of starfish, turning slowly
like cogs inside
a water-watch, wound by a sea river;
the star’s five fingers tremble and
reach for a clam’s book of meat,
into which it will inject a sedative
and then its stomach.
In The City, escaped parrots colonize
a hilltop and breed, cackling You want that
In a bag? More hits after this…
“You see, Schmuel,” Aaron resumed, in the tone a very wise man might employ with a very simple child, “the fact is, women’s voices are arousing to men. Don’t you find this to be so?”
“Sure, the good ones. Is that wrong?”
“And when you’re aroused,” he went on, “what happens to your concentration? Out the window. This also is why we separate the genders in shul. Also why our women cover their hair, knees, and shoulders. Why they wear thick stockings, not thin ones. When we pray, we want to immerse ourselves in prayer, not distract ourselves with sex.”
I spoke up then for distracted people everywhere. “What’s so bad about sex?”
Daddy shook the box, kicked it, mumbled under his breath something that sounded like it had teeth. He came from around the house with a shovel and dragged it behind him, along with the box, to the woods. He would bury my dog, I thought.
“He has something of mine,” the man said.
With that, she turned to look at him. “Who are you?” she finally demanded. “Sergio called me to come pick him up, not you.”
“You don’t know me?” His voice pitched higher, edging toward frustration, maybe anger. “You don’t know who I am?”
“No,” she finally said. “I don’t.”
“He’s got my heart,” the man said, melodramatically holding his hands across his chest, but he sneered a bit when he said it. “He’s got a lot of things I want back.”
Copyright © 2006 by Manuel Muñoz. By permission of Stuart Bernstein Representation for Artists, New York, NY and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. All rights reserved. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express permission is prohibited.
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.
“Malcolm is dead,” Eddie kept hearing as he raced to the shop. As he got closer, he saw the flashing lights, and the siren that had been only an eerie, barely audible musical accompaniment to his thoughts began to register as belonging to an ambulance and not as being a regular plant alarm. He knew that he would not cry no matter how awful it was; he never cried. That was one thing he never had to worry about. If one of them had to be killed here, it was better that it was Malcolm—because if Eddie had been killed, Malcolm would have cried like a baby.
There’s a kind of sky below the ocean –
a field of starfish, turning slowly
like cogs inside
a water-watch, wound by a sea river;
the star’s five fingers tremble and
reach for a clam’s book of meat,
into which it will inject a sedative
and then its stomach.
In The City, escaped parrots colonize
a hilltop and breed, cackling You want that
In a bag? More hits after this…
“You see, Schmuel,” Aaron resumed, in the tone a very wise man might employ with a very simple child, “the fact is, women’s voices are arousing to men. Don’t you find this to be so?”
“Sure, the good ones. Is that wrong?”
“And when you’re aroused,” he went on, “what happens to your concentration? Out the window. This also is why we separate the genders in shul. Also why our women cover their hair, knees, and shoulders. Why they wear thick stockings, not thin ones. When we pray, we want to immerse ourselves in prayer, not distract ourselves with sex.”
I spoke up then for distracted people everywhere. “What’s so bad about sex?”