THE ROTUNDA VOL. LVI:
LONGWOOD COLLEGE, FARMVILLE, VIRGINIA
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 3, 1981
NO. 8
Sorrentino Awarded Dos Passos Prize Longwood College has announced the award of the 1981 John Dos Passos Prize for Literature to poet and novelist Gilbert Sorrentino. The Dos Passos Prize, established last year at Ix)ngwood, includes a medal and a cash award of $1000. It commemorates one of the greatest of 20th century American authors by honoring other writers in his name. The winner is chosen by an independent jury appointed by the college each year. The prize marks the most recent recognition of the varied work of the Brooklyn-born Sorrentino, who has also been recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship for fiction, and who was nominated for the PENFaulkner Award for his 1980 novel Aberration of Starlight. Sorrentino's Selected Poems 1958-1980 were published this year, and a new novel, Crystal Vision, is due in November. Sorrentino, who has been called the "Pound of his era," earned the accolade with a wide range of literary activity over the past 25 years: as poet, novelist, critic, editor, and mentor of younger writers. A classics student at Brooklyn College who served two years as
a medic in the Army, Sorrentino was founder or editor of two influential literary magazines: Neon in the 1950's and Kulcher in the following decade. He also worked during the 60-s as an editor at Grove Press, whose international list introduced American readers to talents as diverse as Jack Kerouac, Samuel Beckett, and Jean Genet. A poet in the imagist tradition of William Carlos Williams and Ezra Pound, Sorrentino is the author of six collections of poetry. His poems were represented in what proved to be the most important anthology of its period, The New American Poetry 1945-1960, and his fiction, poetry, and criticism has appeared in such magazines as Tri-Quarterly, Partisan Review, and The Atlantic Monthly. He has also published six novels, of which the best-known is perhaps the massive Mulligan Stew, a Joycean tour de force that brought him a major reputation as a novelist, according to poet Robert Creeley, who assessed Sorrentino's achievement on August 2 in The Washington Post: "(His work) reads as a remarkable survival of that appetite (the modern) masters had for language, for what one
could make, literally, out of words. Sorrentino is the only writer of the present company whose authority extends equally to the novel (Mulligan Stew brought him international acclaim in 1978) and whose work as a critic . . . was often a daily affair as well as a lifelong commitment." Creeley's judgment is affirmed in the pages of a new literary magazine, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, whose entire first issue is given over to a study of Sorrentino's work. Other nominees for the Dos Passos Prize were novelists John Barth and Walker Percy. The 1981 prize jury included novelist Peter Rand, a former fiction editor of Antaeus who teaches in the writing program at Columbia University; novelist, poet and playwright Michael Stephens, who directs writing programs at Fordham University; and novelist and journalist William Crawford Woods, director of journalism and creative writing at Longwood, and administrator of the prize. The John Dos Passo Prize for Literature will be presented to Gilbert Sorrentino in ceremonies at Longwood College on November 18.
Wells Resigns: "Fresh Viewpoints" Needed By BILL BRENT "I sincerely believe that it is time for the College to bring a fresh viewpoint to academic administration." said Carolyn Wells in her letter of resignation October 13. Wells is vacating her position as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College. She has not disclosed the date her resignation takes effect. She says she will remain at LC but did not say in what capacity. Wells has worked at Ixmgwood for more than 13 years. She started out as a biology teacher for nine years. Then in 1969 she came to the administration as the Assistant Dean of the College (that position is currently held by Dr. James Gussett). She became Dean of the College in 1975. When asked why she was leaving she replied, "In virtually every administrative office, you need to
have fresh blood come in at periodic intervals." She believes it's time to change with the new administration and its ideas. The college's overall goal is unchanged, although we have a new president; the goal to have the highest quality education possible remains paramount. These new ideas involve an increased size of the adult education student with enrollments in night and week end classes plus summer conferences. The undergraduate population will not grow much and no plans are being made for a new dormitory. Special Education classes and Computer Sciences are two academic programs that are being evaluated for further development. The biggest difference in the administration from Wells' point of view is the renewed interest in private fundraising.
FULL STAGED PRODUCTION OF
"GODSPELL" JARMAN AUDITORIUM NOV. 5, 6, 7
1:00 PM
L.C. $2.00; otto $2.50 SPECIAL GROUP RATES
The Performing Arts Series will present The Atlanta Ballet on Sunday, November 8, at 8:00 p.m. In Jarman Auditorium. Admission Is free.