We just received word that David Lehman has won the Virginia Quarterly Review Emily Clark Balch Prize for Poetry for his translation of Apollinaire’s “Zone,” which appeared in the journal's Spring 2013 issue. This award cannot be applied for; it is a VQR staff decision regarding the best work of poetry published in its print or online pages in 2013.
The Balch Prizes were established by Emily Clark Balch, the founding editor of The Reviewer, a publication that was key to the literary awakening of the American South. When Balch died, she left the bulk of her estate to the University of Virginia, for “the encouragement and production of American Literature.” (The money was divided to endow prizes in fiction and poetry and to create a writer-in-residence position—first occupied by William Faulkner.)
Past recipients of the poetry prize include Wendell Berry, John Berryman, Hayden Carruth, James Dickey, Carolyn Forché, Albert Goldbarth, Donald Hall, Lisel Mueller, May Sarton, Charles Simic, Natasha Trethewey, and Ellen Bryant Voigt.
Read David Lehman's introduction along with his translation of his winning poem, Appollinaire's "Zone" here.
Congratulations, David! Bon travail!
— sdh