Contact: Maridith Geuder
STARKVILLE, Miss.--The widely recognized director of Mississippi State's creative writing program is the 2005 winner of a national literary competition.
English professor Richard Lyons, a university faculty member since 1994, earned the top honor and a check for $1,500 from Washington, D.C.-based Word Works. His award concluded a competition that annually recognizes the works of a contemporary American poet.
Lyons' entry was a full-length manuscript titled "Fleur Carnivore." It was selected by a panel of judges from more than 340 submissions and will be published by Word Works in 2006.
"Fleur Carnivore" features meditations on Eastern philosophy, African-American jazz, and modern painting, among other subjects. Included are examinations of the lives and works of Clifford Brown, John Coltrane, Cecil Taylor, Francis Bacon, Paul Klee, and other artists.
A doctoral graduate in English and creative writing from the University of Houston, Lyons is the author of two previous award-winning books of poetry. He received the Devins Award from the University of Missouri Press for "These Modern Nights" (1988) and the James Dickey Memorial Award from the University of South Carolina Press for "Hours of the Cardinal" (2000).
In 1992, he was selected for the Peter I.B. Lavan Younger Poets Award by the Academy of American Poets.
Over his academic career, Lyons has had works featured in the "Gettysburg Review," "Cimarron Review," "Paris Review," "New England and Breadloaf Quarterly," "New Republic," and other national journals.
He also is a graduate of the universities of Massachusetts and Arizona.