2007 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Jack Prelutsky named 2007 Washington Poets Association Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Jack Prelutsky, WPA's 2007 Lifetime Achievement Winner.

Seattle-based poet Jack Prelutsky, author of close to 70 volumes of children's verse and America's first Children's Poet Laureate, has been honored with the Washington Poets Association's 2007 Lifetime Achievement Award.

Prelutsky was presented with the award at the WPA's 2007 Burning Word Festival of Poetic Fire, a day-long poetry extravaganza held at Whidbey Island's Greenbank Farm on Saturday, April 28.

[Read the introduction given for Jack Prelutsky at Burning Word by Michael Dylan Welch]

“We're excited to honor such a deserving poet,” said WPA president Victory Lee Schouten. “Jack lives his life creating and teaching poetry and has brought such wonderful attention to children's poetry. He's a great match for our festival, too, which celebrates all kinds of poetry for people of all ages.”

The award recognizes Prelutsky's work over a 40-year period. He has produced such classics as A Pizza the Size of the Sun and The New Kid on the Block. A more recent work is Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant. He also has a book of haiku, If Not for the Cat.

Last September, the 66-year-old New York City native was named by the Poetry Foundation as its first U.S. Children's Poet Laureate, a two-year appointment which comes with a medallion and a $25,000 prize. During his tenure, he will advise the foundation on children's literature, give readings and participate in events to help instill a love of poetry among children nationwide.

A contemporary and acquaintance of the late children's author Shel Silverstein, Prelutsky was educated at Hunter College in New York. As a child, he says he hated poetry because of the way it was taught. As an adult, he discovered its power, particularly for children.

“Children...are just like us [adults] - only shorter. I write about the things kids care about,” he told the Seattle P-I last September.

Prelutsky and his wife, Carolynn, make their home on Seattle's Queen Anne Hill. He is the fourth recipient of the WPA's Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients include Carolyn Kizer (2006), Sam Hamill (2005), and Tess Gallagher (2004).

2006 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Pulitzer Winner, Editor, Translator, Teacher, Human Rights Activist Carolyn Kizer

Carolyn Kizer, WPA's 2006 Lifetime Achievement Winner.

In a unanimous decision, the Board of the Washington Poets Association awarded the 2006 Lifetime Achievement Award to Carolyn Kizer. Board President, Victory Schouten, said that the award not only recognized Kizer's Pulitzer Prize poetry, but also her "energetic involvement and outspoken support against injustices."

One example of her battle against injustice was her resignation from the post of Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Appointed to that position in 1995, she resigned only three years later to protest the absence of women and people of color on the board. In summarizing her influence, Edwin Weihe, director of Seattle University's Creative Writing Program, said that Kizer had "sharply and gracefully challenged the patriarchal poetry establishment."

Carolyn Kizer was born in Spokane, Washington, and attended high school there. She went on to attend Sarah Lawrence College and study as a fellow of the Chinese Government in Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She came back to Washington where she studied poetry with Theodore Roethke at the University of Washington. In 1959, she co-founded Poetry Northwest and was its editor until 1965. As a State Department specialist in Pakistan, she taught at a women's college and translated poems from Urdu into English. She served as the first director of the Literature Program at the National Endowment for the Arts (from 1966 to 1970), served as Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and has been a poet-in-residence at Columbia, Stanford, and Princeton. In addition to being the recipient of the 1985 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, she received the Theodore Roethke Award (1988); an American Academy of Arts and Letters award; the Award of Honor of the San Francisco Arts Commission; The Borrestone Award (six times); The Pushcart Prize (three times); the Frost Medal; the John Masefield Memorial Award; and The Governor's Award for the best book of the year, State of Washington (1965, 1985).

Kizer's most recent books include Pro Femina: A Poem (BkMk Press, 2000) and Cool, Calm & Collected: Poems 1960-2000 (Copper Canyon Press, 2001). Other books include: Harping On: Poems 1985-1995 (Copper Canyon Press, 1996); The Nearness of You: Poems for Men (1986); Yin (1984), which won the Pulitzer Prize; Mermaids in the Basement: Poems for Women (1984); Midnight Was My Cry: New and Selected Poems (1971); Knock Upon Silence (1965); and The Ungrateful Garden (1961). She has also written Picking and Choosing: Prose on Prose (1995), Proses: Essays on Poets and Poetry (1994), and Carrying Over: Translations from Chinese, Urdu, Macedonian, Hebrew and French-African (1986), and edited 100 Great Poems by Women (1995) and The Essential Clare (1992).

Carolyn Kizer received a standing ovation from the standing-room-only audience at the 2006 Burning Word Festival where she received the Lifetime Achievement Award. She currently lives in Sonoma, California, and Paris.

2005 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner

Distinguished Poet, Publisher, Translator, Editor and Activist Sam Hamill

Sam Hamill, WPA's 2005 Lifetime Achievement Winner.

The Washington Poets Association has announced Sam Hamill is the WPA's 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award winner. "As soon as Hamill was nominated the board's enthusiasm grew, resulting in a unanimous vote in his favor," states WPA President Leonard Orr. "We all felt great admiration for his poetry, translations, the achievements of Copper Canyon Press, and Hamill¹s social activism from teaching poetry in prisons through the recent work of Poets Against the War." The LAA honors a meritorious body of work by a Washington poet. "He is a model and inspiration for all who care about poetry and engagement with the world.", adds Orr.

Hamill, who moved to Port Townsend in 1974, is the author of thirteen volumes of original poetry including Destination Zero: Poems 1970-1995, Gratitude, and Dumb Luck; three collections of essays (including A Poet's Work), and two dozen volumes translated from ancient Greek, Latin, Estonian, Japanese, and Chinese, most recently, The Poetry of Zen and The Essential Chuang Tzu (both with J.P. Seaton); Narrow Road to the Interior & Other Writings of Basho, and Crossing the Yellow River: Three Hundred Poems from the Chinese. He is editor of The Gift of Tongues:Twenty-five Years of Poetry from Copper Canyon Press, The Erotic Spirit, Selected Poems of Thomas McGrath and The Complete Poems of Kenneth Rexroth (with Bradford Morrow).

Hamill taught in prisons for fourteen years, in artist-in-residency programs for twenty years, and has worked extensively with battered woman and children. He has been the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Fund, the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the U.S.-Japan Friendship Commission.

"I have always been grateful for the companionship and traditions of Northwest poets and poetry," Hamill continues. "In many ways, we have been the most forward-looking as we bridged the Pacific Rim long before most Americans were even aware of the term. To be honored by such contemporaries is, indeed, an honor."

Other honors received by Hamill include a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, two Washington Governor's Arts Awards, and an anti-censorship award from PEN Oakland. He is Founding Editor of Copper Canyon Press and former director of the Port Townsend Writers' Conference. He founded Poets Against the War in January 2003, and in March delivered to Congress 13,000 poems by 12,000 poets, and edited a best-selling selection, Poets Against the War (Nation Books, 2003). In March 2005, Shambhala Publications will publish his new and selected poems and translations, Almost Paradise, and in September, his translation of Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching.

“It seems especially appropriate for the Washington Poets Association to honor Sam Hamill. His many notable achievements make us all proud,” adds Burning Word festival chair and WPA Executive Vice President, Victory Lee Schouten. “The Lifetime Achievement Award will be presented to Sam at next year's Burning Word, to be held Saturday April 30, 2005. A main stage reading by Hamill will follow the presentation and is sure to be a great highlight.”

“This year more than 300 people attended Burning Word. That number is bound to grow in 2005,” continues Schouten. “The 2004 inaugural Lifetime Achievement Award winner went to Tess Gallagher. Now, with the naming of Sam Hamill as the 2005 winner, the Washington Poets Association continues its high standard for this prestigious award.”

Burning Word Festival 2004 a hit with poetry lovers

Close to 350 of all ages attended WPA's first Burning Word Festival of poetry at beautiful Greenbank Farm on Whidbey Island. The weather cooperated providing a beautiful day as more than 35 performers and presenters brought their best and were enthusiastically appreciated. The team of around 30 volunteers helped everything run smoothly.

Tess Gallagher, WPA's 2004 Lifetime Achievement Winner. Photo by Brian Farrell.

“Tess Gallagher was a gift,” said Festival committee chair Victory Schouten. Hers is a generous spirit, and it was a great pleasure to spend time with her. Tess read to a full house and received heart-felt standing ovations at the beginning and end of her appearance. She read extraordinary new poems from her manuscript Dear Ghosts, and spoke of hope, tenacity, courage, politics and life.

The three first place winners of the student contests, Kristina Faccone, Cailen McDevitt and Kelsey Bacon, were there to collect their awards as well. All six workshops cultivated 30-50 participants and open mikes were filled with nervous beginning poets and experienced performers who never get enough. Six fine small presses took part in the book fair where more than 20 of the performers sold books and CDs. The WPA handled the sales without a fee or percentage as a service and thank you to the performers. Musical interludes within the program had people up dancing in the aisles.

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