Strand's poems occupy a place that exists between abstraction and the sensuous particulars of experience. It is a place created by a voice that moves with unerring ease between the commonplace and the sublime. The poems are filled with "the weather of leavetaking," but they are also unexpectedly funny. The erasure of self and the depredations of time are seen as sources of sorrow, but also as grounds for celebration. This is one of the difficult truths these poems dramatize with stoicism and wit. Blizzard of One is an extraordinary book--the summation of the work of a lifetime by one of our very few true masters of the art of poetry.
For a distinguished volume of original verse by an American author, Five thousand dollars ($5,000).
Blizzard of One, by Mark Strand (Alfred A. Knopf)
Columbia University Provost Jonathan R. Cole (left) presents Mark Strand with the 1999 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry.
Winning Work
Blizzard of One
Biography
Mark Strand was born in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada, and was raised and educated in the United States and South America. He is the author of eight earlier books of poems. He is also the author of a book of stories, Mr. and Mrs. Baby, several volumes of translations (Rafael Alberti and Carlos Drummond de Andrade among them), a number of anthologies (most recently The Golden Ecco Anthology) and several monographs on contemporary artists (William Bailey and Edward Hopper). He has received many honors and grants for his poems, including a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 1990 he was chosen as Poet Laureate of the United States.
He teaches in The Committee on Social Thought at The University of Chicago.
The Jury
The Jury
Charles Wright(chair )*
Souder Family Professor of English
David St. John
professor of English
Molly Peacock
president emerita
Winners in Poetry
1999 Prize Winners
Duke Ellington
Bestowed posthumously, commemorating the centennial year of his birth, in recognition of his musical genius, which evoked aesthetically the principles of democracy through the medium of jazz and thus made an indelible contribution to art and culture.
Chuck Philips and Michael A. Hiltzik
For their stories on corruption in the entertainment industry, including a charity sham sponsored by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, illegal detoxification programs for wealthy celebrities, and a resurgence of radio payola.
Staff
For its clear and detailed coverage of a shooting rampage in which a state lottery worker killed four supervisors then himself.