US Poet Laureate Kay Ryan has chosen Christina Davis, curator of HCL’s Woodberry Poetry Room, as one of two recipients of the 2009 Witter Bynner Fellowship. Ryan introduced Davis and fellow recipient Mary Szybist at the Library of Congress on February 26. Davis and Szybist each received a $10,000 fellowship, provided by the Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry in conjunction with the Library of Congress. According to Ryan, “Christina Davis knows when not to know, but simply transmit the compelling illogic of what we really feel. Her poems are filled with room for amazement.”

Librarian of Congress James H. Billington said, “These fellowships—to poets whose distinctive talents and craftsmanship merit wider recognition—provide a wonderful way for the Laureate, the Library, and the Witter Bynner Foundation to encourage poets and poetry.”

The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry was incorporated in 1972 in New Mexico to provide grant support for programs in poetry through nonprofit organizations. Witter Bynner was an influential early-20th-century poet and translator of the Chinese classic Tao Te Ching, which he named The Way of Life According to Laotzu. He traveled with D. H. and Frieda Lawrence and proposed to Edna St. Vincent Millay (she accepted, but then they changed their minds). He worked at McClure’s Magazine, where he published A. E. Housman for the first time in the United States, and was one of O. Henry’s early fans. For further information on the Witter Bynner fellowships and the poetry program at the Library of Congress, visit http://www.loc.gov/poetry.