April 14, 2009, Chicago—Graywolf Press is delighted to announce that Fanny Howe has been awarded the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. The Poetry Foundation announced the annual award of $100,000 today, and it will be presented to Howe at the Pegasus Awards ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on Tuesday, May 19.

In announcing the Lilly Prize, Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine, said, “Fanny Howe is a religious writer whose work makes you more alert and alive to the earth, an experimental writer who can break your heart. Live in her world for a while, and it can change the way you think of yours.”

Established in 1986 and presented annually by the Poetry Foundation to a living U.S. poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition, the Ruth Lilly Prize is one of the most prestigious awards given to American poets, and at $100,000 it is one of the nation’s largest literary prizes.

Over the last 20 years, the Lilly Prize has awarded more than $1,000,000. Previous recipients of the prize include Adrienne Rich, Philip Levine, Anthony Hecht, Mona Van Duyn, Hayden Carruth, David Wagoner, John Ashbery, Charles Wright, Donald Hall, A.R. Ammons, Gerald Stern, William Matthews, W.S. Merwin, Maxine Kumin, Carl Dennis, Yusef Komunyakaa, Lisel Mueller, Linda Pastan, Kay Ryan, C.K. Williams, Richard Wilbur, Lucille Clifton, and Gary Snyder.

“The selection of Fanny Howe as this year’s winner of the Lilly Prize does honor to the traditions—of excellence, importance, and discovery—that the prize has stood for since it was established over 20 years ago,” said John Barr, president of the Poetry Foundation.

Fanny Howe, 68, has written many books of poetry including Gone, (University of California Press, 2003), Selected Poems (UC Press, 2000), On the Ground (Graywolf Press, 2004), and The Lyrics (Graywolf, 2007). She has also written novels, five of them collected in one volume called Radical Love. At seventeen Howe left her home in Boston for California and has since spent her life there and in England, Ireland, and Massachusetts. In recent years she has won the Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize, a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, and an award from the Academy of Arts and Letters. She has written two collections of essays, The Wedding Dress (UC Press, 2003) and The Winter Sun (Graywolf, 2009). Howe has three grown children and six grandchildren; she currently lives on Martha’s Vineyard.

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.

Graywolf Press, based in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a literary nonprofit publisher dedicated to the creation and promotion of thoughtful and imaginative contemporary literature essential to a vital and diverse culture. Graywolf’s award-winning list includes poetry, fiction, memoir, and books about writing.