Annal:1989 Whitbread Book Award for Poetry
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Whitbread Book Award in the year 1989. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1989 Whitbread-Poetry winner
- Score: 10.39
The title poem of this collection looks at the linguistic initiation rites of soldiers. “One didn’t know the name of Tarzan’s monkey,” it begins. Yet two verses later: “The morning of the first snowfall, I was shaving. Staring into a mirror nailed to a tree. Intoning the Christian names of the Andrews Sisters. ‘Maxine, Laverne, Patty.’ ” The other entries are similarly inventive.
