Folger Poetry, a program of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C., announced yesterday that it will award Juliana Spahr its nineteenth annual O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize. She will receive the ten-thousand-dollar award and give a reading at the library on October 9.
The prize, named for poet, teacher, and former Folger director O. B. Hardison, is awarded to recognize poets' work as writers and their service as educators. Spahr, who teaches at Mills College in California, most recently published The Transformation (Atelos Press, 2007), a lyric memoir. Claudia Rankine and Joshua Weiner selected her for the honor.
Past winners of the poetry prize are:
2008 Mary Kinzie
2007 David Wojahn
2006 David Rivard
2005 Tony Hoagland
2004 Reginald Gibbons
2003 Cornelius Eady
2002 Ellen Bryant Voigt
2001 David St. John
2000 Rachel Hadas
1999 Alan Shapiro
1998 Heather McHugh
1997 Frank Bidart
1996 Jorie Graham
1995 E. Ethelbert Miller
1994 R. H. W. Dillard
1993 John Frederick Nims
1992 Cynthia MacDonald
1991 Brendan Galvin