Joshua Weiner awarded 10th Annual Levis Reading Prize

"From the Book of Giants," a collection of poetry by Joshua Weiner, was selected for the 10th Annual Levis Reading Prize, an award sponsored by the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of English and the MFA Program in Creative Writing in honor of the best first or second book of poetry published in 2006.

Weiner, also the author of "The World's Room," will receive an honorarium of $1,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Richmond on Sept. 27 for a reception and public reading. Weiner is also the recent recipient of the Rome Prize in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters and a Whiting Writers' Award.

Weiner's work has appeared in Best American Poetry, the Nation, the American Scholar, the New York Review of Books, the Chicago Tribune, the Threepenny Review, TriQuarterly, the Chicago Review, the Boston Review, the Yale Review and Slate, among other publications. "From the Book of Giants" was published by the University of Chicago Press.

Weiner's poems have addressed topics such as a need for music, fatherhood and the fear of a beloved child growing up and disappearing. His poems employ formal conventions in unexpected ways and have a searching quality to them, as well as a vivid clarity.

The Levis Reading Prize was established in 1998 in memory of Larry Levis, the distinguished poet and teacher who taught at VCU until his untimely death in 1996. The Department of English and the MFA in Creative Writing Program at VCU aim to encourage poets early in their careers by sponsoring the annual award in Levis' name.

More than 150 poets and publishers entered work for this year's contest. For more information about the Levis Reading Prize, call 804-828-1329 or e-mail englishgrad@vcu.edu.