Cocktails by D.A. Powell Named a Finalist for NBCC Award

January 2005—Graywolf Press is proud to announce that Cocktails by D.A. Powell has been nominated for the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. 

Cocktails is a harrowing and unsettlingly witty collection of poems born out of the AIDS pandemic and the transformative worlds of the cocktail lounge, the cinema, and the Gospels.

Publisher’s Weekly remarked, “Powell’s third, and best, book completes his much-talked about trilogy about growing up gay and uneasy in the age of HIV—and about living with the virus himself…. Not a journey to miss.” The New York Times Book Review noted, “No accessible poet of his generation is half as original, and no poet as original is this accessible. With his open-secret sexiness, his confident collage effects and his grave subjects, Powell could reach far beyond the segmented audiences most poets now expect.”   

D.A. Powell’s Cocktails was published by Graywolf Press in March 2004. Powell is also the author of Tea and Lunch. He teaches at the University of San Francisco and lives in the Bay Area. 

The other poetry finalists include: The Orchard by Brigit Pegeen Kelly (BOA Editions), The School Among the Ruins by Adrienne Rich (WW Norton), Interglacial by James Richardson (Ausable Press), and Danger on Peaks by Gary Snyder (Shoemaker & Hoard).

The awards ceremony will take place on Friday, March 18, at the auditorium of the New School, 66 West 12 Street, New York, at 6:00 PM. The event is free and open to the public. A gala reception follows directly at the New School with an admission fee of $40. Nominees will read from their works on Thursday, March 17, also at the New School’s auditorium, at 6:00 PM. This is also free and open to the public.

The National Book Critics Circle is a not-for-profit organization of book editors and critics with some 600 members nationwide. The organization was founded in 1974 to encourage and raise the quality of book criticism in all media and to create a way for critics to communicate with one another about their professional concerns. For more information visit www.bookcritics.org.