Field Knowledge
Morri Creech

There were more than 360 entries for this year’s Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, and it took Waywiser Press’s screening panel three months of careful reading, deliberation, and discussion to narrow the field, first to twenty semi-finalists, and then to ten finalists. The latter (stripped of all identifying references) were then sent to this year’s judge, Mr J.D. McClatchy (poet, editor of the Yale Review, and the late Anthony Hecht’s literary executor), who, while acknowledging the considerable strengths of all ten finalists, had no doubt about Field Knowledge being the entirely deserving winner.
Morri Creech was born in Moncks Corner, South Carolina in 1970, and was educated at Winthrop University and McNeese State University. He currently lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana with his daughter Hattie and teaches in the MFA Program at McNeese State University.

October 2006, 5½ x 8½ (Waywiser)
ISBN 1-904130-23-2 (978-1-904130-23-9)
Paper $15.95

Big Men Speaking to Little Men
Philip Fried

This collection begins in World War II Atlanta, as the poet’s birth is disrupted by a home run at the local stadium. Myth and history haunt such places as a Hudson Valley high school where Ralph Waldo Emerson is a science teacher, a Bronx apartment where a boy becomes a mirror for his mother, and a Paris square where Victor Hugo plays hopscotch to achieve utopia.
Philip Fried is a New York-based poet, and the founding editor of The Manhattan Review. Fried's poems have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Poetry After 9-11: An Anthology of New York Poets. As a poetry advocate, Fried organized a successful campaign to increase the number and quality of poetry reviews in The New York Times.

September 2006, 5½ x 8½, 104 pages (Salmon)
ISBN 1-903392-55-1 (978-1-903392-55-3)
Paper $18.95

She Alone
John Menaghan

She Alone, a book-length poetic sequence, traces the life of an imaginary woman from birth to death and beyond, employing a wide range of forms from free verse to heroic couplets. The poem captures the changing moods and circumstances of this nameless woman and her struggle to find fulfillment, connection and identity in a rapidly changing world.
John Menaghan is an Irish-American poet living in Venice, CA. Winner of an Academy of American Poets Prize, he has published poems and articles in Irish, American, and Canadian journals.

Of Menaghan’s other work:
“Humorous, ironic, erotic, neurotic, and tender.”
—Kirkus Reviews

November 2006, 5½ x 8½, 84 pages (Salmon)
ISBN 1-903392-56-X (978-1-903392-56-0)
Paper $18.95

Moon Wheels
Ruth Fainlight

Images of the moon, however interpreted – whether stern and stony presence or protective maternal symbol – recur throughout Ruth Fainlight’s work. Each poem is a balancing act between thought and feeling, revealing otherness within the everyday, often measuring subtle shifts in relationships.
Ruth Fainlight has published poetry, short stories, translations and libretti. She was born in New York City but has lived in England since the age of 15.

Of Fainlight’s earlier work:
“This gorgeous, unrhymed sonnet describes the dip and bend in a country road.”—The Hudson Review

October 2006, 5½ x 8½, 112 pages (Bloodaxe)
ISBN 1-85224-742-8 (978-1-85224-742-3)
Paper $22.95

Extreme of Things
Jenny Joseph

This is a large collection combining new poems with a thematic selection from recent books. It explores the duality of existence, a track which runs through all Joseph’s work in poetry or prose.

Of Jenny Joseph’s earlier works:
“A moodier collection of reflective poems about the dead and lost.”—Publishers Weekly
“She is in fact deeply feminist, honoring women’s traditional as well as unconventional yearnings.”—Booklist

Jenny Joseph is one of Britain’s best-known poets. Her poem “Warning” was voted Britain’s most popular modern poem in a BBC poll.

August 2006, 5½ x 8½, 128 pages (Bloodaxe)
ISBN 1-85224-681-2 (978-1-85224-681-5)
Paper $22.95