Maurice English (October 21, 1909 – November 18, 1983) was a poet, journalist, and author who is noted for having headed the presses of the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Temple University Temple University (Temple or TU) is a public state-related research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1884 by the Baptist minister Russell Conwell and his congregation Grace Baptist Church of Philadelphia then called Ba ...

, and the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

. Following his death, English’s family established the '
Maurice English Poetry Award
'', which honors an author in his or her sixth decade of life (fifty or beyond) for a distinguished book of poems published during the preceding calendar year. The award acknowledges that English's first volume of poetry, ''Midnight in the Century'', was published in his 55th year. It carries an honorarium of $3,000 and a request for a public reading in Philadelphia. The MEPAward was first given in 1985 to

Jane Cooper Jane Cooper (October 9, 1924 – October 26, 2007) was an American poet. Awards * Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters * Maurice English Poetry Award (1985) * Shelley Memorial Award (1977) * Bunting Institute of Radc ...

for ''Scaffolding: New and Selected Poems'' (1985).

Selected publications

* * *

Recipients of the Maurice English Poetry Award

*1985:

, ''Scaffolding: New and Selected Poems'' *1986:

Linda Pastan Linda Pastan (born May 27, 1932, in New York) is an American poet of Jewish background. From 1991 to 1995 she was Poet Laureate of Maryland. She is known for writing short poems that address topics like family life, domesticity, motherhood, the fe ...

, ''A Fraction of Darkness'' *1987: Philip Booth, ''Relations'' *1988: David Ray, ''Sam's Book''. *1989:

Jean Valentine __NOTOC__ Jean Valentine (April 27, 1934December 29, 2020) was an American poet and the New York State Poet Laureate from 2008 to 2010. Her poetry collection, ''Door in the Mountain: New and Collected Poems, 1965–2003'', was awarded the 2004 N ...

, ''Home Deep Blue: New and selected poems''. *1990:

W. S. Merwin William Stanley Merwin (September 30, 1927 – March 15, 2019) was an American poet who wrote more than fifty books of poetry and prose, and produced many works in translation. During the 1960s anti-war movement, Merwin's unique craft was thema ...

, ''Selected Poems'' *1991: Richard Fein, ''Kafka's Ear'' *2001:

Kay Ryan Kay Ryan (born September 21, 1945) is an American poet and educator. She has published seven volumes of poetry and an anthology of selected and new poems. From 2008 to 2010 she was the sixteenth United States Poet Laureate. In 2011 she was named ...

, ''Say Uncle'' *2002:

Robert Bly Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...

, ''The Night Abraham Called to the Stars'' *2003:

Samuel Hazo Samuel Robert Hazo (born 1966) is an American composer, primarily of music for concert band. Biography Hazo is the son of the poet and playwright Samuel John Hazo and his wife, Mary Anne. After elementary and secondary schooling in the Upp ...

, ''Just Once: New and Selected Poems'' *2004:

R. T. Smith Rodney T. Smith (born 1947 in Washington, D.C.) is an American poet, fiction writer, and editor. The author of twelve poetry collections and a collection of short fiction, Smith is the editor of '' Shenandoah'', a prestigious literary journal p ...

, ''The Hollow Log Lounge'' *2005:

Caroline Knox Caroline Knox (born 1938) is an American poet based in Massachusetts. She is the author of six collections of poetry, most recently, ''Quaker Guns'' (Wave Books, 2008), and ''Nine Worthies'' (Wave Books, 2010). Her poems have been published in lite ...

, ''He Paves the Road with Iron Bars''

References

1909 births 1983 deaths 20th-century American poets {{US-poet-1900s-stub