SHORT TAKES : National Poetry Prize to Return

After a 40-year interval, the Library of Congress has decided to resume awarding a national prize for poetry.

Librarian of Congress James Billington issued a statement that the award, to be called The Rebekah Johnson Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, will be presented in October for the best book of poetry published by an American during 1988 or 1989.

The $10,000 prize is provided by Bobbitt’s family in her memory. Bobbitt, a sister of President Lyndon B. Johnson, worked in the library’s cataloguing department in the 1930s, where she met her husband, O. P. Bobbitt.

The Bobbitt Prize is the first such award given by the library since it awarded the 1948 Bollingen Prize to Ezra Pound. Pound had been interned for his pro-Italian activities during World War II and was indicted for treason.

Following that controversy, the library adopted a policy prohibiting the granting of awards or prizes.