William Walsh
Bill Walsh, director of Reinhardt’s MFA program, has won the Červená Barva Press Editor’s Poetry Series.
In order to win this prize, the editors at Červená Barva Press – an organization founded in 2005 that solicits works from various writers around world and holds open contents regularly – narrowed the manuscripts down from 400 to a mere 20-50 manuscripts. After this process, the editors begin to look closer into the quality of the writing, themes, technique and the overall quality in which the manuscript is written.
Červená Barva Press will publish Walsh’s winning manuscript, “Fly Fishing in Times Square,” in the fall of 2018 or winter of 2019.
“Winning any poetry prize is a matter of luck. I am grateful and humbled by this award because I know how difficult it is to win,” Walsh said. “Any of the five finalists could have won. However, winning validates all the hard work and sacrifice we make as artists.”
Walsh finds inspiration in his past as he looks back to his childhood, as well as to subjects that are relatable to today’s world. Much of his childhood and interactions with family members serve as a metaphor for his life now which appears in his writing.
“I seek the truth about all things regardless of what the Truth turns out to be, and that almost always occurs through metaphor,” Walsh said. “As Marion Montgomery told me years ago, each of us must sort through our inheritance. He didn’t mean money. So, I am always sorting through my inheritance, and in doing so, discovering the truth about the world.“
