Advertisement

Graduate Wins Poetry Award

Heaney Gives Harvard Review Prize to English Professor

Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory Seamus Heaney awarded the Harvard Review prize on Friday to Heather McHugh '69 for her book of poetry, Hinge & Sign.

The Harvard Review prize is given annually to a book of poetry, fiction or literary non-fiction that has been discussed in Harvard Review.

Speaking on behalf of the selection panel, Heaney said: "Heather McHugh is one of poetry's artful dodgers, impatient with adequacy, as reckless as she is intelligent.

There is a glancing, dancing speed to her poems which are never self-satisfied laps of honor but flatout sprints against her own lyric clock. Her gift is a sort of language-cat set loose among the language pigeons."

McHugh is a professor of English at the University of Washington, Seattle, and is the author of five books of poetry and one book of essays.

Advertisement

The prize consists of $1,000 and a reading at the Poetry Room in Lamont Library, followed by a reception.

Also on Friday, K.E. Duffin '76 was awarded the Harvard Review prize for excellence in reviewing.

Prudence Stiener, Associate Editor of the Review, announced the award:

"Duffin makes 'difficult' poets more accessible without oversimplifying, drawing on her wealth of knowledge yet never pulling away from the book," Stiener said. "Her writing displays a discursive suppleness and a metaphorical resource almost equal to the poet's own gifts, offering sure, clear articulation of the right way to approach a daunting new book."

Duffin's prize consists of a $500 and a reading or lecture at the Poetry Room, to be followed by a reception.

Advertisement