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November 21, 2001

University Press awards Starrett poetry prize

Gabriel Gudding is the 21st winner of the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, which is awarded by the University of Pittsburgh Press for an outstanding first book of poetry. Gudding's manuscript, "In Defense of Poetry" was selected this month from nearly 750 entries. The Press will publish the volume in fall 2002.

Established in 1981, the Starrett prize is named for the Press's first director. The prize carries a $5,000 award.

Ed Ochester, editor of the Pitt Poetry Series and Starrett prize judge, said of the winning manuscript, "There is nothing else quite like this in American poetry. [The poems are] by turn cool, smart, hilarious and brutal — often all at the same time."

Gudding, who holds an M.F.A. from Cornell, is the recipient of a 1998 "The Nation" Discovery Award and a 2001 Constance Saltonstall individual artist's grant. He teaches creative writing at the University of Mississippi.

Filed under: Feature,Volume 34 Issue 7

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