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News Release
June 5, 2007
Boise State University's Ahsahta Press Announces Rusty
Morrison as Winner of the Sawtooth Poetry Prize
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| Rusty
Morrison |
Rusty Morrison has been selected as the winner of the $1,500 Sawtooth
Poetry Prize, an annual honor given by Boise State University’s Ahsahta
Press.
Morrison’s manuscript of poems, “the true keeps calm biding its story,” was
selected by poet Peter Gizzi, author of “Some Values of Landscape and
Weather.” Morrison’s manuscript will be published by Ahsahta in January
2008.
Morrison, of Richmond, Calif., is the author of the 2004 collection “Whethering,”
published by the Center for Literary Publishing and distributed by
University Press of Colorado. Morrison is the co-publisher of Omnidawn
Press. An earlier version of “the true keeps calm biding its story” received
the prestigious Alice Fay di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of
America, given for a manuscript in progress.
This year’s runner-up was Brenda Iijima of Brooklyn, New York. Her work, “If
Not Metamorphic,” will also be published by Ahsahta.
The press received 600 entries for this year’s competition. “Each year the
quality of the entries gets better, Janet Holmes, director of the press,
said. “That makes the decisions that much more difficult.”
An undergraduate intern logged all the manuscripts submitted to the contest
and assigned each a number, filing away all identifying materials. At least
two of the graduate students in Holmes’ MFA course in small press publishing
read each manuscript before passing it on to Holmes, who also read it. Of
the 600, 43 became semifinalists.
“We go through a winnowing process in the class,” Holmes said, “in which
each student champions manuscripts they’ve been impressed with. After we
narrowed it down to 43, the class — Ahsahta’s editorial board for this year
— each read all 43 manuscripts, and we decided how many would be forwarded
to the final judge.” This year, 22 were forwarded to Gizzi.
“It’s a terrific learning process for the graduate students,” Holmes said.
“They experience first-hand what treatment a manuscript gets when it’s in
the hands of a publisher, and they see packages that strike them as either
professionally done or hopelessly amateurish. During the winnowing process,
they have to clarify their poetic values, listen to and weigh the
presentations of their peers, and the end result is that they learn to read
manuscripts of poems whose poetics may be radically different from their
own.
“That kind of hands-on learning isn’t available through other means during
grad school, and most MFA programs don’t have a press with which students
can work,” she added.
Next year’s Sawtooth Poetry Prize contest will be held between Jan. 1 and
March 1, 2008, and judged by MacArthur Award-winning poet C.D. Wright,
author of “Deepstep Come Shining, Steal Away: New and Selected Poems,” and
“Cooling Time,” all from Copper Canyon Press.
“the true keeps calm biding its story” marks the sixth winner of the
Sawtooth Poetry Prize at Ahsahta Press. Ahsahta, a name taken from the
Mandan word for Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, has produced 80 volumes of
poetry since its founding in 1974. The press’ Web site is
http://ahsahtapress.boisestate.edu and distributes its books through
Small Press Distribution, Berkeley, Calif.
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Contact: Janet Holmes, Ahsahta Press, (208) 426-2195,
jholmes@boisestate.edu
Media Contact: Julie Hahn, University Communications, (208) 426-5540,
juliehahn@boisestate.edu
Boise State University is the largest institution of higher education in
Idaho, offering more than 190 fields of interest in eight colleges. The
deadline for degree-seeking students to apply for fall admission is July 18.
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Last reviewed on
Thursday, October 25, 2007
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