(March 11, 2014)

B. H. Fairchild chosen as 2013-14 Corrington Award recipient

SHREVEPORT, LA — Centenary College has named renowned poet B. H. Fairchild as the 2013-14 recipient of the John William Corrington Award for Literary Excellence. The award ceremony, which will feature a reading from the author, is free and open to the public Monday, March 17, 7:00 p.m. in the Whited Room of Bynum Commons.

Fairchild has written seven collections of poetry, including The Art of the Lathe, Early Occult Memory Systems of the Lower Midwest, Local Knowledge, and Usher. A major retrospective collection, The Blue Buick: New and Selected Poems, will be published by W. W. Norton in July. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, Paris Review, Poetry, and American Scholar among many others. A native of rural towns in both Texas and Kansas, Fairchild depicts the lives and landscapes of those people and places he was surrounded by in his youth.

David Ulin, a writer for the Los Angeles Times, described Fairchild as "one of those poets prose readers love: meaty, maximalist, driven by narrative. He stakes out an American mythos in which the personal and the collective blur."

Beyond his impressive and exhaustive writing résumé, which includes a scholarly book on the poetry of William Blake, Fairchild is also a professor of English. His teaching career has brought him from California State University to the University of Tulsa to the University of North Texas. He currently resides in California.

His work has been recognized with fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. Fairchild has also been the recipient of the PEN Center USA West Poetry Award, the Arthur Rense Prize, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.

The Corrington Award was named for the novelist and Centenary alumnus John William Corrington '56 (1932-1988). He is best known for his short novel, Decoration Day. The award recognizes a career of dedication to literary excellence and artistic accomplishment. The recipient is presented with a bronze medal, designed by Louisiana sculptor Clyde Connell.

The inaugural recipient of the Corrington Award in 1991 was Pulitzer Prize-winning author Eudora Welty. Other Corrington medalists include Elizabeth Spencer, James Dickey, Richard Wilbur, Eavan Boland, Michael Longley, Alice McDermott, Yusef Komunyakaa, and Tim O'Brien. The 2012-13 recipient was Richard Bausch.

Since 2001, the Attaway family, Corrington family, and Provost Office have provided funding for the Corrington Award.