Max Heinegg wins inaugural Paul Nemser Book Prize
Max Heinegg’s Good Harbor is one of those rare collections of poems in which a confidence emerges almost immediately that we are in the hands of a poet who creates the sensation that life is writing itself. In a stance that manages to be at once wry and quizzical, tenderhearted and tough, the poet/speaker surveys, interrogates, analyzes, embraces, and recapitulates the torrid and balmy experience of the heart with poignancy and panache. The poems present with an intelligence that seeps ineluctably into one’s ken— Heinegg’s sagacity brews itself with a gentle muscularity and arises like steam from the cup. But the wisdom is not the totality of it—the poems also manifest a rip-roaring engagement with perception at the level of the five senses. How deeply gratifying it is to read these poems, an entire story (for really, all the poems here are episodes in the tale of a life) that does not end happily ever after, but finds its ends through the means of joy.
Tom Daley, House You Cannot Reach
Judge for the inaugural Paul Nemser Book Prize
Max Heinegg’s work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. He has won the Sidney Lanier poetry prize, the Emily Stauffer poetry prize, and been a finalist for the poetry prizes of Asheville Poetry Review, Cutthroat Journal, Crab Creek Review, December Magazine, the Nazim Hikmet Poetry Prize, Rougarou Journal, Twyckenham Notes, and West Virginia Writers.
His poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Thrush, Nimrod, The Cortland Review, The American Journal of Poetry, and the Columbia Poetry Review.
He is an ELA teacher in Medford Public Schools, and a recording artist whose records can be heard at www.maxheinegg.com.
I am thrilled to learn that Max won this award for his work. I have enjoyed reading his poems and listening to his music for years! His students will be so proud!
Max rocks in poetry and music, in teaching and beer making, in just about everything. Congratulations, Max!