From the South Carolina State Library
http://www.statelibrary.sc.gov/sc-academy-of-authors-announces-4th-annual-poetry-fellowship-winner
by Curtis Rogers
The South Carolina Academy of Authors is very pleased to announce
Susan Laughter Meyers is the 2013 winner of the Nickens Fellowship in
poetry, as chosen by this year's judge, Nick Lantz, author of award
winning poetry books and the recipient of a number of poetry prizes.
Meyers’ poetry was selected out of 43 submissions. In selecting her
work, Lantz stated, “The author’s lines move like one of the rivers that
figure so prominently in the poems: twisting, slowing, pooling,
speeding off, they savor the precise textures of the world, from pluff
mud to laughter like ‘a bale of loose hay’.”
Lantz also commented, “Showing equal ease with free verse and
traditional form, the author displays great range, though the poems
contain a common strength in the clarity and insight of metaphor and
image, in their fresh and exacting syntax and diction, as in ‘Night
after night/combing the fog of your troubled/heart, red wolves./Wild,
gracile & dolorous’ or ‘Her handkerchief, tatted, an unplowed acre.’
The longer persona poem ‘A Dervish of Sand: That Summer with Her
Sisters’ is especially admirable for the complex and heartbreaking
portrait it weaves from its vivid, impressionistic details.”
Susan Laughter Meyers, of Givhans, is the author of
My Dear, Dear Stagger Grass, recipient of the inaugural Cider Press Review Editor’s Prize and scheduled for release this fall. Her book
Keep and Give Away
(University of South Carolina Press) received the SC Poetry Book Prize.
Her poems have also appeared in numerous anthologies and journals,
including The
Southern Review, Prairie Schooner, and
Beloit Poetry Journal. A long-time writing instructor, she currently teaches in various community programs in the Lowcountry.
The Academy wishes to congratulate this year’s winner and to thank
all who participated in the competition. Meyers will receive a $1,000.00
prize at a special brunch held in conjunction with the Academy's annual
induction ceremony. This year's ceremony events will be held in
Columbia, April 26-28, when Jack Bass, Nikky Finney, Terrance Hayes, and
Eugene Robinson will be inducted into the state's literary hall of
fame.
The submission period for the 2014 Fellowship will open next autumn.
For more information about the South Carolina Academy of Authors, please visit
www.scacademyofauthors.org.
