William Stobb

I'm pleased to announce that my poem "A Moment for Authentic Shine" has been awarded the 2012 Spoon River Poetry Review Editors' Prize.  The poem is printed in full on the SRPR website, here .   The new issue of SRPR  includes the judges comments by David Baker. Also, the online mag The Offending Adam  recently ran   this review of   my 2011 Penguin Poets collection, Absentia.   It's written by Kelli Anne Noftle, and looks at the book's relationship to the work of artist Michael Heizer , whose sculptures and earthworks inspired a group of the experimental poems in the collection.    I'm grateful for the good words of these editors and reviewers.  Thank you.

Fox, William.   The Void, The Grid & The Sign: Traversing the Great Basin.   Reno: U of Nevada P, 2005. (The desert video below is shot from the first turnout on Soldier Meadows Road, Black Rock Desert.  As far as I can tell, there’s no footage available online of just d esert.  I do walk into the frame at the eleven minute mark.  Sorry.  Then it ends.  Larger version at  https://vimeo.com/55545311 .) For the last five years or so, William L Fox’s The Void, The Grid & The Sign ( VGS from now on) has occupied a special place in my life.  It’s taken the place of Leaves of Grass and Jay Meek’s Stations as my go-to travel book—the book I carry with me if I’m on a trip because I love it and it’s nice to have something you love with you when you travel.  As its subtitle explains, the book traverses the Great Basin, looking at land art and signature landscapes while thinking about the human and natural history of the region and how the Great Basin challeng