In what the Academy of American Poets [4] calls an "unprecedented concurrence," the sole finalist for the 2008 Walt Whitman Award, J. Michael Martinez, was just named winner of the 2009 award. Judge Juan Felipe Herrera [5] chose Martinez's collection, Heredities, from nearly a thousand anonymous entries. It will be published in the spring of 2010 by Louisiana State University Press [6]. Martinez will receive five thousand dollars and a one-month residency at the Vermont Studio Center [7]. The Whitman [8]is given for a first book of poems.
Last year, judge Linda Bierds [9] selected Martinez as the only finalist and named Jonathan Thirkfield the winner for The Waker's Corridor; whereas this year Herrera chose Martinez and named Keith Ekiss ("Pima Road Notebook") and Sarah Elaine Smith ("I Live in a Hut") finalists.
Which contest do you think Ekiss and Smith will be sending their manuscripts to next year [8]?
Martinez, who was born and raised in Greeley, Colorado, received an MFA from George Mason University. His poems have appeared in New American Writing [10], Five Fingers Review [11], the Colorado Review [12], and Crab Orchard Review [13], among others. He lives in Boulder and teaches literature, critical theory, and cultural studies at the University of Northern Colorado [14].