"Presentation to Paul Engle of the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts" is an address given at the American Academy of Arts and Letters upon conferring the award to Engle in May 1990. It was included in the Proceedings of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1990.
Summary[]
Having written a poem for the occasion—similar to one Engle himself wrote in praise of Robert Frost—Vonnegut proclaims that when Engle headed the Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, he served his colleagues "gracefully... [and] lovingly". He is the first winner of the award from west of the Mississippi River, excluding Senator William Fulbright who was "essentially a Washingtonian". This is good since Vonnegut says those in Manhattan and Brooklyn grow tired of "carrying the whole load ourselves". The citation of the award states that his services in the program at Iowa, in which many notable writers have taught or studied, as well as founding with his wife Hualing Nieh the first International Writing Program from 1967 until 1988, has been a catalyst for all the creative writing programs that have been founded since.[1]
- ↑ "Presentation to Paul Engle of the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts", Proceedings of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, 1990, 2nd series, no. 41, pp. 37-38.