LESLEY WHEELER

Tag: National Book Awards

  • Repress the year, but read the books

    Countdowns and confetti: bah humbug. By New Year’s Eve, I’m tired of festivity. Middle age has clearly settled in, because I now regularly find myself closing out the year by binge-reading. December is always a good month for catching up on The Year’s Big Poetry Books. My university library orders the US National Book Award…

  • Close-reading the 2015 National Book Awards

    Forecast: capricious poetry weather ahead. Last year I tackled the National Book Award’s poetry long list in time for a new year’s post and learned a lot from the exercise. This year I was completing the same task, reading with admirable industry and dedication, when I picked up Sunday’s New York Times Book Review and…

  • On the 2014 National Book Award for poetry

    I try to be generous, really I do, but I have been known to nurse cynical and petty feelings about the poetry business. I watch various prizes dealt out and sigh inwardly. So many honors go to people who have already won the other honors as if in an endless feedback loop of being-lauded-because-they’re-lauded. Do…