2008 Arizona Literary Treasure Award
(Individual): Nancy Mairs
Nancy Mairs, a poet and essayist, was awarded the 1984 Western States Book Award in poetry for In All the Rooms of the Yellow House (Confluence Press, 1984) and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1991. The University of Arizona Press published her first work of nonfiction, a collection of essays entitled Plaintext: Deciphering a Woman's Life, in 1986. Since then, she has written a memoir, Remembering the Bone House, a spiritual autobiography, Ordinary Time: Cycles in Marriage, Faith, and Renewal, and three more books of essays, Carnal Acts, Voice Lessons: On Becoming a (Woman) Writer, and Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled, all available from Beacon Press. The work on her latest book from Beacon, A Troubled Guest: Life and Death Stories, was funded by a fellowship from the Soros Foundation's Project on Death in America.
Mairs is a wonderful writer—her craft crackles with energy and wit. She is also an important writer. Her essays unflinchingly explore topics of disability, contemporary faith, peace and justice, marriage, foster parenting, chronic illness and the beauty of the world. She looks at the world with a clear-eyed vision and thoughtfully considers what it means to be alive. Her books remain in print—testimony that she is telling stories and ideas that the world needs to read. We are lucky to have Nancy Mairs here in Arizona.
2008 Arizona Literary Treasure Award
(Organization): University of Arizona Poetry Center
"AHC was proud to make an additional award this year to acknowledge the enduring literary impact that the Poetry Center has had in Arizona, through bringing renowned poets to Arizona to share their work, and by providing workshops and encouragement to new generations of young poets," said Juliana Yoder, executive director of the Arizona Humanities Council. "The time is right to honor the University of Arizona Poetry Center, a true Arizona treasure, as it has recently opened its new facility, the breathtaking Helen S. Schaefer Building. The Poetry Center’s new home embodies almost five decades of work for and inspired by poetry, and heralds a new era of renewed commitment to literature in our state, and beyond."
The Poetry Center was founded in 1960 and has been bringing poetry to the people of Arizona for almost fifty years. Robert Frost joined Ruth Stephan, the founder, at the dedication of the original library. Her vision was to "create a welcoming place and a distinguished collection that would encourage students, faculty and community members ‘to encounter poetry without intermediaries.’" The resulting collection has expanded to its present state as a world-class, one-of-a-kind archive of 60,000 items, including 30,000 volumes of poetry and 24,000 issues of journals and periodicals (320 current subscriptions), 300 broadsides, 3,000 photographs and 1,500 recordings.
Since it’s inception in 1962, The Poetry Center’s Reading Series has brought hundreds of the world’s most vibrant poets to the Sonoran Desert. All readings are open to the public, and the aesthetic and cultural range of work offered is exceptionally far-reaching and diverse. The Poetry Center is also home to a variety of classes on literature, creative writing and the arts for adults and children.
2008 Arizona Literary Treasure Award
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