February 19
BOLLINGEN PRIZE DAY
Thanks to the Bollingen Foundation and Yale University, starving poets have the opportunity to win thousands of dollars. The first Bollingen Prize in Poetry ($5,000) was awarded to Ezra Pound on this day in 1949. Mr. Pound was presented with the prize for his poetry collection, The Pisan Cantos. Unfortunately, this first award presentation by the Bollingen Foundation was filled with controversy. It seems that Ezra Pound, a talented poet, was also a pro-fascist, and had been charged with treason for broadcasting his political beliefs while in Italy during WWII. Pound was still given the award.
The Bollingen Prize was presented annually through 1963 when Robert Frost was the recipient, after which it became a biennial award. The $5,000 award was upped to $10,000 in 1989 when Edgar Bowers was the prize winner, and to $25,000 in 1995. The $25,000 award went to poet, Kenneth Koch.
Keep writing those odes, rhymes and stanzas. You may be the next winner of the Bollingen Prize in Poetry. And maybe, just maybe, the award will receive another cost-of-living adjustment.
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