Tessa Rumsey Wins 2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize - W.W. Norton & Co. to Publish New Book
 New York, NY-- Barnard College, in collaboration with W. W. Norton & Co., announces that Tessa Rumsey has won the 2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize , an annual contest to publish an emerging poet's second collection. Rumsey's second book, The Return Message , will be published by W.W. Norton in April 2005, and she will receive a $1,500 cash prize.
Rumsey will give a public reading of her work as part of the distinguished Women Poets at Barnard series in 2005 to coincide with the publication of her book. Last year, the first prize went to Rebecca Wolff for Figment (W.W. Norton, 2004).
Saskia Hamilton, director of the Women Poets at Barnard program and a contest judge, said: "Tessa Rumsey is one of the most original and exciting writers of her generation and we were struck by the sophistication and beauty of her manuscript. We are happy to help the book into print through this unusual collaboration between a college and a major publishing house. Young poets have many opportunities to find publishers for their first poetry collections, but they are often stranded without a publisher for their second book. We thought we would address a real need in the literary community by making this a second-book prize."
Other judges for this year's contest included Vice President and Senior Editor at W.W. Norton Jill Bialosky and poet Jorie Graham, who said: "The book's inquiries into love, loss, generation, and the nature of language make it extend what the traditional lyric has undertaken throughout its history. It's a beautiful and impressive work--joyful with wit and formal experiment, movingly urgent in its concerns."
"We are delighted to be the publisher for Barnard's second-book poetry competition. Women Poets at Barnard has had a distinguished presence in American poetry, and we are pleased to be continuing with that tradition," said Bialosky. "We feel that there is a particular challenge for poets publishing their second book, and we want the prize to reflect these challenges--an author's second book frames the voice and presence more solidly."
Rumsey's first book, Assembling the Shepherd , won the 1998 Contemporary Poetry Series Competition and was published the University of Georgia Press in 1999. Poet Forrest Gander wrote of her first book: "Ahhh! This is freshly imagined, a poetry that won't be readily folded into familiar trends. Densely lyrical, driven into splendidly original forms, rich in their lexical rand and syntactically inventive, the poems accrue and resound, intensifying their meanings throughout the collection. Rumsey has a nervy, energetic intellingence that makes Assemling the Shepherd a keen, sustained pleasure."
"It is an honor to be chosen for the 2004 Barnard Women Poets Prize . Barnard's longstanding commitment to facilitating the publication of poets and to extending poetry's reach has created an inspiring legacy," said Rumsey. "W.W. Norton's cultivation of an innovative collection of poetry books and dedication to their authors is legend. The meeting of these two champions of poetry in creating the prize is exciting for both poets and readers."
Rumsey's poems have recently appeared in Conjunctions, The Boston Review, The Washington Post, and Verse. Rumsey received her B.A. in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College, an M.F.A in creative writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and an M.A. in Visual Criticism from the California College of the Arts. She lives in San Francisco.
Barnard worked for 15 years with Beacon Press, establishing a noted award for an author's first book of poems. Barnard's original poetry award was acclaimed as "the best series currently introducing new writers to the public" by Booklist , and poet Mona Van Duyn remarked that "this series that has most consistently convinced us that, in the rich and multi-directional advances of American poetry, young women are in the forefront." This tradition of excellence will be continued through the new poetry prize for second collections.
The Barnard Women Poets Prize was first awarded in 1986 to Patricia Storace for Heredity , chosen by judge Louise Bernikow. Other past winners include Donna Masini ( That Kind of Danger chosen by Mona Van Duyn), Ruth Forman ( We Are the Young Magicians chosen by Cherrie Moraga), Jena Osman ( The Character chosen by Lyn Hejinian), Larissa Szporluk ( Dark Sky chosen by Brenda Hillman), Christine Hume ( Musca Domestica chosen by Heather McHugh) and Reetika Vazirani ( White Elephants chosen by Marilyn Hacker).
Women Poets at Barnard , directed by Hamilton, has been a distinguished series for more than 17 years, offering public readings by emerging and established poets at the College. Guests have included poets Adrienne Rich, Louise Gluck, Lyn Hejinian, Claudia Rankine, and Rebecca Wolff.
Known for the strength of its writing program, Barnard's faculty includes such important novelists as Professors Mary Gordon '71 and Caryl Phillips, and poets Claudia Rankine and Saskia Hamilton. Each year, literary scholars from around the world join the staff. This year's guest lecturers include novelists Roddy Doyle and Christine Schutt.
Barnard's notable literary alumnae also include Zora Neale Hurston '28, Francine du Plessix Gray '52, June Jordan '57, Erica Jong '63, Ntozake Shange '70, Anna Quindlen '74 and Jhumpa Lahiri '89 (both Pulitzer Prize winners), and Edwidge Danticat '90.
Contact:
Petra Tuomi, Barnard Public Affairs, 212-854-7907, ptuomi@barnard.edu or Jill Bialosky, W.W. Norton & Co., 212-790-4297, jbialosky@wwnorton.com
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