The Academy of American Poets announced yesterday that poet Marvin Bell [2] will judge the 2010 Walt Whitman Award [3], given for a first poetry collection. Bell's debut collection, published in 1966 by Stone Wall Press, is Things We Dreamt We Died For, and his most recent book is 7 Poets, 4 Days, 1 Book (Trinity University Press, 2009), a collaborative project with six other writers.

The winner of the Whitman Award, which will open for entries on September 15, will receive a prize of five thousand dollars, publication of his or her winning manuscript by Louisiana State University Press, and a monthlong residency at the Vermont Studio Center [4] in Johnson. Writers who have not published a poetry collection in a standard edition—that is, a book of forty pages or more in length that was released in an edition of five hundred copies or more—may submit a manuscript of fifty to one hundred pages between September 15 and November 15 with a twenty-five-dollar entry fee. Poets who have published chapbooks or books in limited editions still eligible. An entry form and complete guidelines are available on the Academy Web site [5].

The winner is expected to be announced in May 2010. Last year's award, judged by Juan Felipe Herrera [6], was given to J. Michael Martinez of Boulder, Colorado, for his debut collection, Heredities, which will be published next spring.

To read a selection of poems by Bell, and to link to an interview with him conducted by Rebecca Seiferle [7], visit the Academy's Web page [8] on the poet.