Sigma Tau Delta is excited to announce the 2024 Common Reader: Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020, by Carl Phillips.
Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry, Then the War: And Selected Poems features new poems and an extended prose sequence, “Among the Trees,” as well as a selection of poetry from a number of Phillips’ earlier books. Both a retrospective and a prospect of his ongoing concerns, Then the War explores the resources of memory, desire, human fears and connections, natural elements as they reflect and resist human purposes, and the ways these and other preoccupations can be expressed in language, song, and silence. One critic aptly describes Phillips’ work as “contemplative, rich, and troubled,” and here we encounter a witty and incisive intelligence questioning the many ways of making meaning in a contrary and contradictory world, as “moment by moment, any life unfurls.”
One of our most celebrated contemporary poets, Carl Phillips teaches at Washington University in St. Louis. His work has been awarded the Academy of American Poets Prize, the Kingsley Tufts Award, the Jackson Poetry Prize, the Pushcart Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. Other honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Library of Congress, and the Academy of American Poets, an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In addition to his 16 books of poetry, he has published two collections of critical essays and a translation of Sophocles’s Philoctetes.
Regents’ Common Reader Awards
Chapters can receive $100 for organizing and hosting a local event or activity around the 2024 Common Reader: Then the War: And Selected Poems, 2007-2020. Chapter members do not need to attend the convention to apply for a Regents’ Common Reader Award. After the event, chapters simply apply for the award money, following the guidelines posted at english.org. Award applications should be emailed on or before February 15, 2024, to the appropriate Regent. View application guidelines.
Common Reader Convention Awards
Awards of up to $600 will be given at the international convention for critical essays or other genres of work that deal with the common reader. To be eligible, students indicate on the convention submission form that their work is in the common reader category (presentation type). Members can submit a total of two works for the convention as long as they are in different categories.
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