Sherod Santos: "Airport Security"

The Poem of the Week is Sherod Santos’s “Airport Security,” which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2003-2004 issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review.

Sherod Santos is the author of five books of poetry, most recently The Perishing (W.W. Norton, 2003). A previous collection of poems, The Pilot Star Elegies, won the Theodore Roethke Poetry Prize and was a finalist for both the National Book Award and The New Yorker Book Award. His other honors for poetry include an Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the B.F. Connors Long Poem Prize from the Paris Review, and the Poetry Society of America's Lyric Poetry Prize.

His book of essays on poetry and poetics, A Poetry of Two Minds, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in Criticism. In 2005 Santos published a collection of translations, Greek Lyric Poetry, which was awarded the Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in the Humanities. Andrew Mulvania conducts an interview with Santos in Volume V, Number 1 of VPR, which also contains my extended review of his work. Sherod Santos retired after the spring 2007 semester as Curators’ Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Missouri.

Tuesday of each week “One Poet’s Notes” highlights work by a poet selected from the archives of Valparaiso Poetry Review. Please check the sidebar to view the list of poets and works that have been past “Poem of the Week” selections.