Graywolf Press is pleased to announce that David Rivard is the recipient of the 16th annual O. B. Hardison, Jr. Poetry Prize, recognizing a poet's teaching as well as his art. Rivard will receive $10,000 and a reading and reception on October 27 at 7:30pm at the Folger. Tickets are $12 and may be purchased at www.folger.edu or by calling the Folger box office at (202) 544-7077. A free seminar begins at 5pm.

Hardison Prize judge Tom Sleigh describes Rivard as “A restless, original talent. The poems I’ve seen…rank him in my mind as one of the best poets now writing.” Also serving as judges this year were Sarah Kennedy and Campbell McGrath.

“I'm deeply grateful for the recognition that the Hardison Prize brings, “ Rivard said, "not least because it reminds me how much my life as a writer has been bound up with the teaching of poetry, and how much teaching has helped me to make and re-make myself as a poet.” He went on to say, “I count myself lucky to have to have had a life where what I get to do every day is a work I love.” Rivard teaches at Tufts University and the MFA Writing Program at Vermont College.

Of his latest work, Sugartown (Graywolf Press 2006), the Washington Post wrote, “moves through familiar material, like the way a good mood and a good memory can make life seem rich and even death nearly acceptable. These street-wise, book-wise, eloquent poems have a bracing sureness and scope.”

Rivard’s other works include Bewitched Playground, Wise Poison which won the James Laughlin Award of The Academy of American Poets, and Torque, which won the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. His poems and essays have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including New England Review, Ploughshares, Poetry, and TriQuarterly.

Founded in 1991, the Hardison Poetry Prize—which includes a $10,000 award and reading at the Folger—is given annually to a U.S. poet whose art and teaching demonstrate the spirit of inquiry, imagination, daring, and scholarship exemplified in O. B. Hardison, Jr.’s life and work. The award acknowledges a poet whose excellent and noteworthy writing has not yet received major recognition, and whose current teaching is making significant contributions to furthering the understanding of poetry and poetics. It is given in memory of former Folger Director O. B. Hardison, Jr., a published poet himself and the founder of the Folger Poetry program in 1970.

Previous winners of the Hardison Poetry Prize are Tony Hoagland (2005), Reginald Gibbons (2004), Cornelius Eady (2003), Ellen Bryant Voight ( 2002), David St. John (2001), Rachel Hadas (2000), Alan Shapiro ( 1999), Heather McHugh (1998), Frank Bidart (1997), Jorie Graham (1996), E. Ethelbert Miller (1995), R.H.W. Dillard (1994), John Frederick Nims (1993), Cynthia MacDonald (1992) and Brendan Galvin (1991).

The 2006-2007 Folger Poetry season marks the 38th year of the library’s poetry reading program, one of the country’s oldest poetry reading programs and noted for featuring an extensive range of outstanding poets. Major funding is provided by the Lannan Foundation who sponsors readings at the Folger and at Georgetown University as well as a collaborative undergraduate learning program with the Lannan Fellows.

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