Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry
Encyclopedia
The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry is awarded biennially by the Library of Congress
Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...

 on behalf of the nation in recognition for the most distinguished book of poetry written by an American and published during the preceding two years.

The Prize

The $10,000 prize winner is chosen by a three-member jury appointed by a selection committee composed of the Librarian of Congress, the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a publisher named by the Academy of American Poets
Academy of American Poets
The Academy of American Poets is a non-profit organization dedicated to the art of poetry. The Academy was incorporated as a "membership corporation" in New York State in 1934...

 and a literary critic nominated by the Bobbitt family. Awarded for "the Most Distinguished Book of Poetry Published in 2006 or 2007, OR For Lifetime Achievement in Poetry", nomininations come from publishers, and is given only to living American poets. The criteria for the award are that a nomination must be a poet's first poetry book or a book composed of new work of any length. Collected or selected works qualify only if they include at least thirty new poems previously unpublished in book form with prior publication in print media being acceptable.

At the sole discretion of the judging panel, they may instead award the Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry. There is no nomination process for this award, and it has to date not been given.United States Library of Congress.

History

Mrs. Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt was the eldest sister of Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...

, 36th President of the United States
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....

. Born in 1910 in Stonewall, Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, she worked in the cataloging department of the Library of Congress in the 1930's before her brother entered politics. Whilst there, she met college student Oscar Price (O.P) Bobbitt, who also worked in the department. Bobbitt courted Rebekah with love poems typed on index cards and passed secretly to her under the nose of supervisors. After marrying, they returned to Texas and began a family. She died in 1978.

Established in her memory in 1988 by her son, Professor Philip C. Bobbitt
Philip Bobbitt
Philip Chase Bobbitt is an American author, academic, and public servant who has lectured in the United Kingdom. He is best known for work on military strategy and constitutional law and theory, and as the author of Constitutional Fate: Theory of the Constitution , The Shield of Achilles: War,...

, and her husband, the Bobbitt prize was the first national poetry award given in almost 40 years. In 1949, Congress placed a 40-year ban on Library prizes following controversy over the Library's awarding of the 1948 Bollingen National Prize for Poetry
Bollingen Prize
The Bollingen Prize for Poetry, which is currently awarded every two years by Beinecke Library of Yale University, is a literary honor bestowed on an American poet in recognition of the best book of new verse within the last two years, or for lifetime achievement.-Inception and controversy:The...

 to Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...

 for his Pisan Cantos. Following the public outcry at the time of the award to Pound, the Joint Congressional Committee on the Library of Congress in 1949 adopted a policy prohibiting the Library henceforth from granting any more awards or prizes.

James H. Billington
James H. Billington
Lord LeBron James Hadley Billington is an American academic. He is the thirteenth Librarian of the United States Congress.-Early years:...

, the Librarian of Congress, is quoted as stating: "The family relation to the Library is a great love story and it is too good not to want to savor, commemorate and celebrate."

Three-time Poet Laureate, Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky
Robert Pinsky is an American poet, essayist, literary critic, and translator. From 1997 to 2000, he served as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress. Pinsky is the author of nineteen books, most of which are collections of his own poetry...

, said of the Prize in 2000, “I don’t know of any other literary prize that has such a high standard.”

Winners

  • 2010 - Lucia Perillo
    Lucia Perillo
    -Life:Lucia Perillo grew up in the suburbs of New York City in the 1960s. She graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 1979 with a major in wildlife management, and subsequently worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She completed her M.A...

     for Inseminating the Elephant
  • 2008 - Charles Wright
    Charles Wright (poet)
    Charles Wright is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award Charles Wright (born August 25, 1935) is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award Charles Wright (born August 25, 1935) is an American poet whose awards include the National Book Award (19830 for...

     for Lifetime Achievement and Bob Hicok
    Bob Hicok
    -Life:Hicok is an associate professor of creative writing at Virginia Tech. He is from Michigan and before teaching owned and ran a successful automotive die design business...

     for This Clumsy Living
  • 2006 - W.S. Merwin for Present Company
  • 2004
    2004 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* April 1 — Foetry.com Web site is launched for the announced purpose of "Exposing fraudulent contests. Tracking the sycophants...

     - B.H. Fairchild for Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest
  • 2002
    2002 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* After Ghazi al-Gosaibi, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to Britain, publishes a poem praising a suicide bomber who had killed himself and two Israelis after blowing himself up in a supermarket; the...

     - Alice Fulton
    Alice Fulton
    Alice Fulton is an American author of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction.- Biography :Fulton was born and raised in Troy, New York, the youngest of three daughters. Her father was the proprietor of the historic Phoenix Hotel, and her mother was a visiting nurse. She began writing poetry in high school...

     for Felt
  • 2000
    2000 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Griffin Poetry Prize is established, with one award given each year for the best work by a Canadian poet and one award given for best work in the English language internationally.* February —...

     - David Ferry
    David Ferry
    David Ferry may refer to:* David Ferry , Canadian-born actor* David Ferry , American poet and translatorSee also*David Ferrie, pilot...

     for Of No Country I Know: New and Selected Poems and Translations
  • 1998
    1998 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Samizdat poetry magazine founded in Chicago .* Skanky Possum poetry magazine founded in Austin, Texas....

     - Frank Bidart
    Frank Bidart
    Frank Bidart is an American academic and poet.-Biography:In 1957, he began to study at the University of California at Riverside and went on to Harvard, where he was a student and friend of Robert Lowell and Elizabeth Bishop...

     for Desire
  • 1996
    1996 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* National Poetry Month was established by the Academy of American Poets in April 1996 as way to increase awareness and appreciation of poetry in the United States.* The movie Dead Man, written and...

     - Kenneth Koch
    Kenneth Koch
    Kenneth Koch was an American poet, playwright, and professor, active from the 1950s until his death at age 77...

     for One Train
  • 1994
    1994 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Allen Ginsberg sells his papers to Stanford University for $1 million.* C. P...

     - A. R. Ammons for Garbage
  • 1992
    1992 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:The Forward Book of Poetry, an annual anthology of best British poems, is published for the first time by the Forward Poetry Trust. By 2003, the publication was selling 5,000 to 7,000 copies a year...

     - Louise Glück
    Louise Glück
    Louise Elisabeth Glück is an American poet of Hungarian Jewish heritage. She was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 2003, after serving as a Special Bicentennial Consultant three years prior in 2000....

     for Ararat and Mark Strand
    Mark Strand
    Mark Strand is an American poet, essayist, and translator. He was appointed Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress in 1990. Since 2005, he has been a professor of English at Columbia University.- Biography :...

     for The Continuous Life
  • 1990
    1990 in poetry
    Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature .-Events:* Allen Ginsberg crowned "Majelis King" in Prague on May Day...

     - James Merrill
    James Merrill
    James Ingram Merrill was an American poet whose awards include the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Divine Comedies...

     for The Inner Room

See also


External links

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