Effective September 2005
The Backwaters Press will no longer offer either The Backwaters Prize nor The Weldon Kees Award.
Manuscripts may still be submitted to the press via Open Submissions. Please note the new guidelines effective as of September 2005.
The Winner of THE 2005 BACKWATERS PRIZE is Anita Feng
For her manuscript Sadie and Morris
Selected from amongst the finalists by
Lola Haskins
Finalists (In No Particular Order)
The Saint of Withdrawal
E. Schwerer
History of GreyKatie Kingston
Rembrandt’s Nose and Other LandscapesCharles Wyatt
In the Valley of the TongueJoel Friederich
The Rascal of PassionJohn J. Ronan
Sweet DarknessGreg Rappleye
The Open Hydrangea BoxLynn Thompson
Semi-finalists (In No Particular Order)
Southern Comfort Nin Andrews
A Selfish NatureSuzann Kole
Along the Swift River Diane Kerr
North of YellowolfJames Grinwis
Humming Women Toni Bennett Easterson
This BrevityGianmarc Manzione
The Man Who Ran Out of Metaphors Peter Bethanis
What We Burned for WarmthChristina Lovin
Love and Other Problem VerbsChris Green
Brother SalvageRick Hilles
Calls From a Lighted HouseJeanne Lohmann
Suite For a Woman, Not Me Susan Davis
Half Life of PassionMissy-Marie Montgomery
The Labyrinth Walkers M. B. McLatchey
Something Almost FallsPriscilla Atkins
Circling HomeNo name on manuscript ID page
Papaya Dawns Vivian H. Schlesinger
Philosophy of TravelJ. R. Thelin
Thanks to all of you who helped make the prizes worthwhile by the high quality of your submitted writing.
Judging: the Judge for 2005 was Lola Haskins. Lola Haskins is a faculty member with the University of Florida's Computer and Information Sciences Department, where she teaches applications programming and web design.Ms. Haskins' most recent book is Desire Lines, New and Selected Poems (BOA Editions, 2004). She has published six previous books of poems, including Extranjera (Story Line, 1998), and The Rim-Benders (Anhinga, 2001), as well as an introductory prose poem to a coffee table book of photographs called Visions of Florida and an essay about the Florida environment in Wild Heart of Florida. She has also recently finished a book of advice for people interested in poetry-- The Wing on the Mailbox, A Beginner's Guide to the Poetic Life, and is working on two new collections of poems and a book of meditations on Florida's state parks. Ms. Haskins' collaborations include playing the speaking Mata Hari in a ballet of that title for which she wrote the libretto, presenting a concert of her collection Forty-Four Ambitions for the Piano, with composer James Paul Sain and pianist Kevin Sharpe, and participating in a joint exhibit with photographer Diane Farris. She has also read her work on NPR and on BBC radio in England. Besides writing poetry, Ms. Haskins enjoys performing it at arts centers and academic institutions of all levels.Some of Ms. Haskins' other book titles include: Planting the Children, (University Press of Florida, 1983) Castings (Countryman Press, 1984; second edition Betony Press, 1992), Across Her Broad Lap Something Wonderful (State Street Press, 1990), Forty-Four Ambitions for the Piano (University Press of Florida, 1990; second edition Betony Press, 1992), and Hunger (University of Iowa Press, 1993), winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize. Judges in past years have included: Philip Levine, Greg Kosmicki, Greg Kuzma, Ted Kooser, CarolAnn Russell, Hilda Raz and Hayden Carruth.
Previous Winners of The Backwaters Prize:
1999 RESCUE by Sally Allen McNall Judged by Greg Kuzma
2002 Skipstone by Ginny MacKenzie Judged by Hilda Raz
2003 Blinding The Goldfinches by Michelle GillettJudged by Hayden Carruth
2004 No Accident by Aaron AnstettJudged by Philip Levine
WINNER OF THE BACKWATERS PRIZE FOR 2004
JUDGED BY Philip Levine
Aaron Anstett
for his manuscript
"No Accident"
Chosen by Philip Levine from among 7 Finalists
Statement by Philip Levine about No Accident:
I read a great many poems by young American poets. I've been doing this for over fifty years, since in fact I was a young, unknown American poet out to discover the nature of his competition. That's exactly how I first found the work of Kinnell, Rich, Snyder, Hecht, Levertov, Creeley, Ginsberg, Merwinmany of the best poets of my generation. Their work told me something I needed to hear: I was going to have to become a hell of a lot better writer if I were ever to regard myself as a true poet. Although I may have begun this venture into poetry in an effort to assess my own talent, in the long run what I found was great inspiration, the knowledge that I was part of a generation that had the talent, vision, originality & determination to add something significant to American poetry.
At seventy-six I'm still reading the young, no longer with the notion of competing, but much more in an effort to discover if these young people speak my language or if I'm up to hearing their language. And also in an effort to put the lie to the often repeated pseudo-fact that the writing workshops have killed off any individuality and daring in our writersthat's how I found writers as diverse as Jane Mead, Li-young Lee, Kate Daniels, Tom Sleigh, Rodney Jones, Kathleen Peirce, to name a few. Now I'd like to add to that list of singular poets the name of Aaron Anstett whose book No Accident is unlike any book of American poems I've ever read before. Maybe I love this book so much because Anstett has done something I could never do, would not even dare to try: he's employed some of the tactics of Cesar Vallejoarguably the finest American poet of the last hundred years and certainly the most furious and experimentaland he's done so without falling under the sway of the great Peruvian and simply imitating him: Vallejo is only one of a number of poetic influence that have come together to form Anstett's uniquely American voice.
Let me also make it clear I find Anstett's poetry in possession of two qualities that for me are essential to the poetry of Vallejo as well as most of the American poetry I admirehumility and compassionqualities that life and not graduate workshops instill (though workshops do not obliterate them in people of character). But no, Anstett is not our little Vallejo, for he is also in possession of a marvelous and zany sense of humor which may owe more to the Marx brothers than any poet who comes to mind. He is decidedly North American and of the present, and even with his epic disrespect and cosmic belly laughs he is ultimately a poet of great humanity and hope:
In the few scraps blown in after the asphalt was swept
and the pyramid of mortared cannonballs in the park off the highway,
where the swings hang absolutely still, as if painted there, we find our joy always.
And there, on the photograph's left edge, the birds eternally arriving.
That's not Vallejo or Kenneth Koch or James Tate. That's something entirely unexpected and original from a powerful imagination like no other. Aaron Anstett's No Accident is here for anyone who needs to replenish the belief that American poetry is as healthy and useful as it ever was.
--Philip Levine, July, 2004
Honorable Mention
Michael Brosnan for "Unfold"
Finalists (In no particular order)
Chris Green for "A Dog Named Soul"
Pamela Gemin for "Another Creature"
George Young for "The Sweetness of Disordered Air"
Sun Young Shin for "Han"
Don E. Thompson for "Where We Live"
Don Boes for "Wall of Smiles"
Semi-Finalists (In no particular order)
W.T. Pefferle for "Nowhere"
Suzanne Owens for "A Hex Gathering Momentum"
Jim Murphy for "Overland Routes"
Mario Rene Padilla for "Postcards"
Robert Strong for "American Common Prayers"
Tony Crunk for "New Covenant Bound"
Charles Randall Cooper for "Earthen Vessels"
Chris Dumbrowski for "By Cold Water"
John Morgan for "Spear-Fishing on the Chatanika"
Rebecca Baggett for "Tree, Salt, Sea"
Lynn Domina for "Monstrous Births"
Laura S. Littleford for "Winter Burning"
Judith Baumel for "Blue Branching"
Sarah Vap for "The Dummy Fire"
Stuart Friebert for "Between Thumb & Index Finger"
Zoe Reed for "St. Harpuspex"
Lou Lipsitz for "Unwilling Births & Other Necessities"
Shannon Borg for "Corset"
Deborah Bogen for "Landscape with Silos"
Tony Trigilio for "The Lama's English Lessons"
Ilmars Uldis Purens for "Accordian Music:Against the Terror of the Night"
Christopher Bursk for "The Improbable Swervings of Atoms"
Tony Barnstone for "Sad Jazz"
Christine Gelineau for "Remorseless Loyalty"
Anne Babson for "The N-Train Canticles"
Judith Hemschemeyer for "Godzilla Kneels"
Karen Zealand for "Special Forces"
Nathan Jones for "Debris/Ritual"
