Graywolf Press is pleased to announce that ELEGY by Mary Jo Bang has been selected as the 2007 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. The winners were announced at the New School’s Tishman Auditorium on March 7th.
ELEGY is a different kind of book for Mary Jo Bang, who wrote this collection while mourning the loss of her son. Ken Tucker writes for Entertainment Weekly, “Had the jacket not said Elegy chronicles the year following the death of her son, Bang’s book would still move you for its grace, not its real-life poignancy.” Chosen by Publishers Weekly and the St. Louis Post Dispatch as best books of 2007, this award further distinguishes ELEGY as one of the best books of 2007.

Jeff Shotts, poetry editor at Graywolf Press was pleased to have two Graywolf poets nominated for the prestigious award, “To have two finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award is a rare and wonderful achievement for Graywolf’s poetry list. And then to have one of them win is thrilling. Mary Jo Bang’s ELEGY is such a deserving winner. It is an extraordinary feat to present language that is authentic and challenging enough that it is up to the real sorrow it describes. We’re gratified to have this kind of affirmation from the National Book Critics Circle for such a humane and important book as ELEGY.”

Every year the NBCC presents awards for the finest books and reviews published in English. Other finalists for poetry were Matthea Harvey for Modern Life, Michael O’Brien for Sleeping and Waking, Tom Pickard for The Ballad of Jamie Allan, and Tadeusz Różewicz for New Poems, translated by Bill Johnston. Bang’s book was chosen by the panel at the end of 2007 as a ‘Critic Pick.’

Mary Jo Bang is the author of four previous books of poetry, including Louise in Love and The Eye Like a Strange Balloon. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri, where she is an associate professor of English and director of the creative Writing program at Washington University.

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. (www.bookcritics.org)

A literary nonprofit publisher, Graywolf Press was founded in 1974 in Port Townsend, Washington, and originally published hand-set, limited editions of poetry. Over the years, the Graywolf award-winning list has expanded to include novels, short fiction, and memoir as well as poetry. More information at: www.graywolfpress.org.

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