Julie Sheehan Wins 2005 Barnard Women Poets Prize - W.W. Norton & Co. to Publish New Book Orient Point
 New
York, NY, April 12, 2005
- Barnard College, in collaboration with W.W. Norton &
Co., has awarded the 2005 Barnard Women Poets Prize to
poet Julie Sheehan, whose second book, Orient Point ,
will be published in 2006 in this unique cooperative venture
between a major publishing house and a college. Sheehan will
also receive a $1,500 cash prize.
Saskia Hamilton, director of the Women Poets at Barnard program and one of the judges of the contest, said: "Barnard's prize gives women poets with emerging reputations a chance to publish a second book with certain prominence and place - a chance to be noticed. And they are able to establish a relationship with a distinguished publisher of poetry."
Other judges for this year's contest include one of the most acclaimed poets of our generation, Linda Gregg, and Jill Bialosky, Vice President and Senior Editor at W.W. Norton.
"I was struck by the muscle, size, shadows, and nuance of her work," said Gregg, who acted as the head judge of the competition.
Sheehan will also give a public reading of
her work as part of the distinguished Women Poets at Barnard
series in 2006 to coincide with the publication of her
book. Previous years' winners include Tessa Rumsey's The
Return and Rebecca Wolff's Figment.
"I am just delighted that Barnard's contest is for the second book, which often can get lost in the shuffle," said Julie Sheehan. "The second book gives a poet more longitude, something to compare to their first book, and the opportunity for everyone to evaluate what is central about their work."
According to Sheehan, her book reflects her long-term interest in "collecting rhetoric." In her writing, she looks for different kinds of ways to experiment with the narrative.
"My book is a collage of quilted rhetorics
- some more traditional, some experimental, often exploring
touchy subjects," said Sheehan. In Orient Point,
she touches on the issue of race and the sexual abuse by priests,
among other subjects.
Sheehan's first book, Thaw , won
the 2000 Poets Out Loud Prize. Harold Bloom wrote that her
poetry is "at its best and most characteristic, it exuberantly
returns us to Walt Whitman (the real Whitman, and not the
barbaric imitators)."
Sheehan's poems have appeared in Parnassus,
Paris Review, Raritan, Salmagundi, Ploughshares,
Rattapallax, Southwest Review, Kenyon Review and Yale Review,
among many others. In 2003, Paris Review awarded her the Conners
Prize for "Brown-Headed Cowbirds." Poet Laureate Billy Collins
recently chose "Hate Poem" for the forthcoming collection
of poetry by Random House (2005), titled 180 More: Extraordinary
Poems for Every Day . Sheehan lives in Springs, Long Island.
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Contact: Petra Tuomi, 212-854-7907,
ptuomi@barnard.edu
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