And a Wainscott Poet Wins It

   “Westerly,” a collection of poems by Will Schutt of Wainscott, is the winner of the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize for 2012. Since 1919 the prize has been awarded to “the most promising new American poets.” Past winners include John Ashbery, W.S. Merwin, and Adrienne Rich. The award means that Yale University Press will publish Mr. Schutt’s collection in April. And new this year, the winner receives a writing fellowship at the James Merrill House in Stonginton, Conn.

    Mr. Schutt has a bachelor’s degree from Oberlin College in Ohio and an M.F.A. from Hollins University in Virginia. His poems and translations have appeared in The Southern Review and AGNI, among others. The poem below, from “Westerly,” previously appeared in Narrative magazine.

“Beach Lane”

It’s a tunnel of sorts. They’re all tunnels, I guess,

even Further Lane and Muchmore Drive,

which would have us believe beyond the sagging

split-rail fence lies the answer to an urban

dream. Not everyone who dreams dreams the beach.

For a while dead-ends are in vogue. For a while

open, uncharted cities. Years go by and all we’ve done is stare

at the ocean from one end of a mile-long lane

with our human eyeballs subject to the brain’s commotion.

This was my boyhood, if you cared: the long

sweet coastal glide to paradise. Babinski raking his father’s

field with a sprained wrist, endless ears of corn

left on the cornstalk firing out of their husks almost

edible. Memory Lane also mystifies: the sun

dwindling in a stream, me rewinding some hopeful words:

“Remembering is nice”: and all the early anger

leaks out of my heart: then and now, home and boyhood:

there was a time that was enough to make

my head spin: reading another old stiff scanning the surf

for his floating face: same thought, same forms

of thought following their accidental beeline, like the few

undying oystermen taking a detour to the tavern

off Sagg Road, where the door’s always dark, the sky still blue.