The 2012 Levis Prize from VCU announced

The Department of English andthe MFA Program in Creative Writing at Virginia Commonwealth Universityare pleased to announce that
 Radial Symmetry by Katherine Larson
has been selected as the winner of the 2012 Levis ReadingPrize for the best first or second book of poetry published in thecalendar year 2011. The award is named in memory of the late Larry Levis,the poet who taught at VCU. Larson will receive an honorarium of $2000 and will be brought to Richmond, expenses paid, for a reception and publicreading on September 20th, 2012.

Katherine Larson’s Radial Symmetry (Yale University Press, 2011)was also selected by Louise Glück as the winner of the Yale Series of YoungerPoets. Larsen’s work has appeared in AGNI, Boulevard, TheKenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, Poetry, andPoetry Northwest, among other publications. She is the recipientof a Ruth Lilly Fellowship, the Union League Civic and Arts FoundationPoetry Prize and the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. In addition to her literarycareer, Larson has worked as a molecular biologist and field ecologist.She lives in Arizona with her husband and daughter.
This year the Prize Committee would also like to recognize the outstandingbooks of two additional finalists, Anthony Carelli for his collection Carnations(Princeton University Press, 2011) and Brian Barker for TheBlack Ocean (Southern Illinois University Press, 2011).

The Levis Reading Prize is presented on behalf of VCU's MFA in CreativeWriting Program. Sponsors include the VCU Department of English, JamesBranch Cabell Library Associates, VCU Friends of the Library, the VCU Libraries,the VCU Honors College, Barnes & Noble @ VCU, and the VCU College ofHumanities and Sciences, with primary funding provided by the family ofLarry Levis.
We would like to express our sincere thanks to all who entered and thushelped to make this annual contest such a success.

For further information aboutthe Levis Reading Prize, see http://www.has.vcu.edu/eng/resources/levis_prize/levis_prize.htm,call 804.828.1329,or contact Katelyn Kiley, Levis Fellow, at kileyk@vcu.edu

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my first reaction is - oh joy, another inexplicable book about nature all metaphored to shit. Ifit has big words (SCIENCE words) it must be good.