"Cortege," a book of poetry written by Carl Phillips '81, has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle award.

Phillips describes his book as exploring "the struggle between flesh and spirit and the search for something like lasting joy in the sexual world, both heterosexual and homosexual--my ideas transcend sexual orientation."

Phillips said he was surprised and honored to receive the nomination.

"I think it's great," he said. "I'm very surprised, pleasantly surprised. This is only my second book and I gather it's unusual to get a nomination so early in one's career so I'm very happy about it."

Phillips said he will attend a ceremony on March 21 at New York University, when the contest winners will be announced.

The other nominees for the award are: Lynda Hull's "The Only World," William Matthew's "Time and Money," James Merrill's "A Scattering of Salts," and "Kyrie" by Ellen Bryant Voigt.

Phillips said he is impressed by the other four selections against which his book will be competing.

"I have read some of the other books I'm up against and they're all very strong collections and I guess I'm mainly pleased to be in such impressive company."

Phillips, who is a professor of English and African American Studies at Washington University, is teaching two courses in poetry writing at Harvard this year.

Phillips said he hopes that the nomination will attract more students to his class this semester.

I'll hope that they've heard of the award and they'll want to study with me, but I like to think they would have wanted to anyway, even before all of this," he added