The Library of Congress announced the winner of its 2010 Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, given for a collection published during the past two years. The ten-thousand-dollar prize went to Washington State poet and MacArthur "Genius" fellow Lucia Perillo for her fifth book of poetry, Inseminating the Elephant (Copper Canyon Press, 2009), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2009.
Perillo is the third woman to be given the honor, along with Louise Glück and Alice Fulton. Among the other past winners of the biennial prize, given since 1990, are Frank Bidart, Bob Hicok, James Merrill, and Franz Wright.
For readers living in Washington, D.C., Perillo will give a free reading on December 13 at the Library of Congress's James Madison Building in celebration of the prize. To hear her read from her winning work now, check out the video below.