Winner of 2010 May Swenson Poetry Award Announced

Elisabeth Murawski of Alexandria, Va., is the winner of the 14th annual May Swenson Poetry Award, presented by Utah State University Press.

 

The judge for the 2010 award was Grace Schulman, distinguished poet and longtime poetry editor of The Nation.

 

Murawski’s winning collection of poems is entitled Zorba’s Daughter and will be published by USU Press later this summer. Murawski was chosen from 600 entries and will also receive a cash award of $1,000.

 

Schulman recognized Murawski’s work from the 25 finalists.

 

“Time and again, I was compelled by the best word, the unpredictable phrase, the surprise,” she said. “The poet’s voice is entirely new. It has a haunting, plaintive quality I find unforgettable, at times close to prayer.”

 

Murawski said she felt doubly honored — to be awarded the prize and to be selected by Schulman, a poet she greatly admired.

 

“It’s been nearly a month since I’ve heard [the news], and I am still pinching myself,” she said.

 

Murawski holds a master of fine arts from George Mason University and is a well-published poet. She has been awarded a Hawthornden fellowship (2008), as well as residencies at the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center and the Achill Heinrich Boll Association.

 

She is author of the collection Moon and Mercury (Washington Writers’ Publishing House) and two chapbooks — Troubled by an Angel (Cleveland State Poetry Center) and Out-Patients (forthcoming from Servinghouse Books).

 

More than 200 of her poems have appeared in journals that include Yale Review, New Republic, Virginia Quarterly Review, Field, Ontario Review, Antioch Review, Southern Review, Dubliner, Poetry Northwest and others. The present volume has been a finalist for the Field Poetry Prize, the Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prize, the Blue Lynx Prize for Poetry and The Journal/OSU Poetry Prize.

 

The judge for this year’s competition is Garrison Keillor, author and host of A Prairie Home Companion.

 

USU Press is a division of Merrill-Cazier Library at Utah State University.

 

For more information on the Swenson Award, visit the USU Press website.

 

Source: USU Press