Brian Culhane Wins the Poetry Foundation's Emily Dickinson First Book Award

October 5, 2007 - Graywolf Press is pleased to announce that Brian Culhane has been named this year's winner of the Emily Dickinson First Book Award, one of four Pegasus Awards given by the Poetry Foundation. The award, which carries a $10,000 prize, recognizes an American poet over the age of 50 who has yet to publish a first book of poetry. Culhane's book, The King's Question, will be published by Graywolf in Fall 2008. Landis Everson, author of Everything Preserved, Poems: 1955-2005, was the previous winner of this award.

The awards were announced at a dinner ceremony on Wednesday, October 3, on the stage of the Jay Pritzker Pavilion at Millennium Park in Chicago. Established in 2004, the Pegasus Awards are a series of annual prizes with an emphasis on new awards to under-recognized poets and types of poetry. Other winners of this year's Pegasus Awards include Anne Stevenson (Neglected Masters Award), Herbert Leibowitz (Randall Jarrell Award in Poetry Criticism), and John Surowiecki (Verse Drama Prize).

Brian Culhane, 53, was born in New York City and earned a BA from the City University of New York and an MFA from Columbia University. He received a PhD from the University of Washington, where he studied epic literature and the history of criticism. He currently lives in Seattle with his wife and children, and teaches film and English at the Lakeside School. Through the Washington Commission for the Humanities, he has lectured on Frost and Thoreau throughout Washington State. His poetry has been published in journals such as the New Criterion, the Hudson Review, the New Republic, and the Paris Review.

About the Pegasus Awards
The Poetry Foundation has established a family of prizes with an emphasis on new awards to under-recognized poets and types of poetry. Inaugurated in 2004, the Pegasus Awards are announced annually in the fall. The Poetry Foundation believes that targeted prizes can help redress underappreciated accomplishments, diversify the kinds of poetry being written, and widen the audience for the art form. With this in mind, it intends to create additional prizes in the years ahead.

About the Poetry Foundation
The Poetry Foundation, publisher of Poetry magazine and one of the largest literary organizations in the world, exists to discover and celebrate the best poetry and to place it before the largest possible audience. The Poetry Foundation seeks to be a leader in shaping a receptive climate for poetry by developing new audiences, creating new avenues for delivery, and encouraging new kinds of poetry through innovative literary prizes and programs. For more information, please visit www.poetryfoundation.org.