The Hoepfner Literary Awards were established to honor Theodore Christian Hoepfner, a colorful scholar in the Auburn University Department of English from 1941 until his death in 1966. Each year, the editors of Southern Humanities Review bestow the awards to an outstanding essay, story, and poem published in the previous volume. Writers hoping to have their work considered for the Hoepfner Awards need only to have their work accepted for publication in SHR.

CLICK HERE to read a tribute to Ted Hoepfner written by his colleague Joe Lambert and SHR’s editors, from Vol 4.2, Spring 1970.
WINNERS


V O L U M E   5 0
ESSAY    Megan Kerns, “Time, Sight, Orbs, Memory” (Vol 50.3&4) FULL TEXT
FICTION    Michael Knight, “Landfall: A Novella” (Vol 50.1&2) EXCERPT
POETRY    Brandon Amico, “Epithalamium” (Vol 50.1&2) FULL TEXT


V O L U M E   4 9
ESSAY    Patricia Foster, “A Problem” (Vol 49.4) FULL TEXT
FICTION    Kevin Wilson, “Living Underground” (Vol 49.2)
POETRY    Ed Skoog, “The Immortals” (Vol 49.1)


V O L U M E   4 8
ESSAY    Webb Harris, Jr., “Long Time Comin': The Education of Brother Webb” (Vol 48.4)
FICTION    Heather Ryan, “Girl Emerges from Landscape” (Vol 48.3) EXCERPT
POETRY    Jennifer Boyden, “First Penis” (Vol 48.3)


V O L U M E   4 7
ESSAY    James Braziel, “The Ballad of JD” (Vol 47.3) EXCERPT
FICTION    Sam Katz, “Hello, My Brother” (Vol 47.2)
POETRY    Kara van de Graaf, “Dictation” (Vol 47.3)


V O L U M E   4 6
ESSAY    Caroline Sutton, “Eclipsed” (Vol 46.2)
FICTION    Judith Dancoff, “Terminus” (Vol 46.4)
POETRY    Dana Koster, “Coyote” (Vol 46.3)


V O L U M E   4 5
ESSAY    Elizabeth Dodd, “Megalithic North” (Vol 45.2)
FICTION    Tyrone Jaeger, “Mercy Comes Calling” (Vol 45.3)
POETRY    R. T. Smith, “Pigeons, Pears, Hush” (Vol 45.4)


V O L U M E   4 4
ESSAY    Paul Crenshaw, “After the Ice” (Vol 44.4)
FICTION    Michael Gills, “The Death of Bonnie and Clyde” (Vol 44.2)
POETRY    Emma Bolden, “The Liturgy of the Word, Question II: The Methods of Destroying and Curing Witchcraft” (Vol 44.4)


V O L U M E   4 3
ESSAY    Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, “This Is How It Happens” (Vol 43.3)
FICTION    Thomas P. Balázs, “The Music Man” (Vol 43.3)
POETRY    Melody Lacina, “Handyman” (Vol 43.1)


V O L U M E   4 2
ESSAY    Kathleen Rooney, “Fast Anchor’d, Eternal, O Love!” (Vol 42.1)
FICTION    David Whortman, “The Six-Dollar Box of Cereal” (Vol 42.3)
POETRY    Daniel Donaghy, “Laertes and the Sandwiches” (Vol 42.1)


V O L U M E   4 1
ESSAY    Lee Zacharias, “Buzzards” (Vol 41.2)
FICTION    Kevin Wilson, “Tiller Family Soup” (Vol 41.4)
POETRY    Katie Chaple, “Madame Du Barry’s Refusal” (Vol 41.3)


V O L U M E   4 0
ESSAY    Andrea Deagon, “Endymion” (Vol 40.2)
FICTION    Richard Dokey, “The Barber’s Tale” (Vol 40.x)
POETRY    Susanna Kort, “Equinox” and “Post Partum” (Vol 40.3)


V O L U M E   3 9
ESSAY    Melissa J. Delbridge, “Family Bible” (Vol 39.2)
FICTION    D. E Fredd, “Satan’s on Euclid Just off Juniper” (Vol 39.3)
POETRY    O. Bradley Bassler, “Marlene and Maria” (Vol 39.2)


V O L U M E   3 8
ESSAY    Chris Arthur, “Miracle Story” (Vol 38.1)
FICTION    Jacob M. Appel, “Grappling” (Vol 38.2)
POETRY   Juliana Gray, “The Man under Your Skin” (Vol 38.1)
POETRY   Chris Forhan, “Having Crept from My Bed” and “Climbing Down” (Vol 38.4)


V O L U M E   3 7
ESSAY    Joseph P. Lawrence, “Socrates and Alcibiades” (Vol 37.4)
FICTION    Nanci Kincaid, “Krystal Lynn” (Vol 37.4)
POETRY    Joseph Harrison, “Mobile Bay Jubilee” (Vol 37.4)


V O L U M E   3 6
ESSAY    Sheryl St. Germain, “Bodies of Water: A Suite from the South” (Vol 36.1)
FICTION    K.M. Clay, “Cowboys” (Vol 36.1)
POETRY    R. T. Smith, “Exhuming Booth” (Vol 36.4)


V O L U M E   3 5
ESSAY    Joseph P. Lawrence, “Socrates in Japan” (Vol 35.4)
FICTION    Barbara Mujica, “Xelipe” (Vol 35.4)
POETRY    Linda Lee Harper, “Reading Voltaire” (Vol 35.1)


V O L U M E   3 4
ESSAY    Eric Wilson, “Emerson’s Fiery Tent” (Vol 34.4)
FICTION    Marlon Barton, “Gypsy at the Door” (Vol 34.3)
POETRY    Ryan G. Van Cleave, “Illinois Ninja and the Spanish Virtuoso” (Vol 34.3)


V O L U M E   3 3
ESSAY    Alan Boye, “Kit Fox Drums and the Wild Dogs of Fonda” (Vol 33.1)
FICTION    R.M. Kinder, “A Near Perfect Gift” (Vol 33.1)
POETRY    Dan Albergotti, “The Osprey and the Late Afternoon” (Vol 33.4)


V O L U M E   3 2
ESSAY    David W. Price, “Bakhtinian Prosaics, Grotesque Realism, and the Question of the Carnivalesque in Bret Easton Ellis’s American Psycho” (Vol 32.4)
FICTION    Kimberly Wallis Holt, “Alaska Fading” (Vol 32.1)
POETRY    Scott Ward, “The Sleep” (Vol 32.3)


V O L U M E   3 1
ESSAY    Colin Jager, “Paying for Piety: Henryk Gorecki in the West” (Vol 31.1)
FICTION    Cary Holladay, “The Rapture of the Deep” (Vol 31.1)
POETRY    Michael Heffernan, “The Night Breeze Off the Ocean” (Vol 31.4)


V O L U M E   3 0
ESSAY    Patricia Foster, “The Hopscotch Girl” (Vol 30.1)
FICTION    Kent Meyers, “Making the News” (Vol 30.2)
POETRY    Lynne Knight, “Lost Sestina” (Vol 30.2)


V O L U M E   2 9
ESSAY    John Rothfork, “Postmodern Ethics: Richard Rorty and Michael Polanyi” (Vol 29.1)
FICTION    Michael Dylan Foster, “Sepia” (Vol 29.4)
POETRY    Ben Howard, “A Winter Fire” (Vol 29.3)
POETRY    Margaret Renkl, “The Lost Queens” (Vol 29.4)


V O L U M E   2 8
ESSAY    Alan Richardson, “Archaism and Modernity: Poetic Diction, Period Style, and the Romantic Canon” (Vol 28.3)
FICTION    Dieter Kühn, “Empress Elizabeth’s Wild Song” (Vol 28.4)
POETRY    Eamon Grennan, “Clearance” (Vol 28.1)


V O L U M E   2 7
ESSAY    Sander L. Gilman, “Max Nordau, Sigmund Freud, and the Question of Conversion” (Vol 27.1
FICTION    Jesse Lee Kercheval, “Gravity” (Vol 27.4)
POETRY    Suzanne Paola, “Flowering Judas” (Vol 27.3)


V O L U M E   2 6
ESSAY    Christopher Norris, “Consensus ‘Reality’ and Manufactured Truth: Baudrillard and the War that Never Happened” (Vol 26.1)
FICTION    Vicki Covington, “Simple Things” (Vol 26.1)
POETRY    Don Russ, “Resurrection Man” (Vol 26.4)


V O L U M E   2 5
ESSAY    Craig Brestrup, “On the Natchez Trace” (Vol 25.1)
FICTION    Marlene Youmans, “The Balsam Spirit” (Vol 25.1)
POETRY    Michael Bugeja, “White Noise” and “Prognosis of the Pupa“ (Vol 25.3)


V O L U M E   2 4
ESSAY    Mark Conroy, “Specular Humanism: An Anatomy of (Self-)Criticism” (Vol 24.3)
FICTION    Perle Besserman, “Reflections of a Yeshiva Girl” (Vol 24.1)
POETRY    Brendan Galvin, “The Inishdhugan Clay“ (Vol 24.4)


V O L U M E   2 3
ESSAY    Geoffrey Harpham, “Ehthics and the Double Standard of Criticism” (Vol 23.4)
FICTION    Greg Johnson, “Private Jokes” (Vol 23.4)
POETRY    Mary Ruefle, “Arturo’s Song”; “Lilies of the Nile” (Vol 23.4)
 

V O L U M E   2 2
ESSAY    Peter Green, “The Armchair Epic: Apollonius Rhodius and the Voyage of Argo” (Vol 22.1)
FICTION   Anthony Bukoski, “The Pulaski Guards” (Vol 22.1)
POETRY    Helene Kendler, “I Knew a Woman Who Conjured God” (Vol 22.4)


V O L U M E   2 1
ESSAY    Christopher Norris, “Against a New Pragmatism: Law, Deconstruction, and the Interests of Theory” (Vol 21.4)
FICTION    Marlene Youmans, “The Boolu Lady” (Vol 21.4)
POETRY    Jerald Bullis, “Consolation”; “This and That” (Vol 21.4;21.2)


V O L U M E   2 0
ESSAY    John Burt Foster, Jr., “Magic Realism in The White Hotel: Compensatory Vision and the Transformation of Classic Realism” (Vol 20.3)
FICTION    Laura Perliss, “Specialization” (Vol 20.4)
POETRY    Paul Jones, “Bamboo” (Vol 20.4)


V O L U M E   1 9
ESSAY    John Halperin, “Trollope, James, and ‘The Retribution of Time’ ” (Vol 19.4)
FICTION    Zena Collier, “Passage” (Vol 19.2)
POETRY    Anne Kilmer, “Leaves for Jenny” (Vol 19.2)


V O L U M E   1 8
ESSAY    Robert Wexelblatt, “Thomas Hobbes and Michael Kohlhaas” (Vol 18.2)
FICTION    Greg Johnson, “Getting Through” (Vol 18.1)
POETRY    David Citino, “Opening Byron’s Tomb, 1938” (Vol 18.1)


V O L U M E   1 7
ESSAY    Robert N. Watson, “Who Bids for Tristero? The Conversion of Pynchon’s Oedipa Maas” (Vol 17.1)
FICTION    Robert Wexelblatt, “Word Problems” (Vol 17.1)
POETRY    Jean Morgan, “Grafting” (Vol 17.2)


V O L U M E   1 6
ESSAY    Jerome Thale, “World War I and the Perception of War” (Vol 16.3)


V O L U M E   1 5
ESSAY    Christine Downing, “ ‘Dear Grey Eyes’: A Reevaluation of Pallas Athene” (Vol 15.2)


V O L U M E   1 4
ESSAY    Patricia Lee Yongue, “Willa Cather’s Aristocrats” (Vol xx.x)


V O L U M E   1 3
ESSAY    Marianne Novy, “Patriarchy, Mutuality, and Forgiveness in King Lear” (Vol 13.4)


V O L U M E   1 2
ESSAY    Benjamin F. Ward, “The Romantic Recovery” (Vol 12.1)


V O L U M E   1 1
ESSAY    Irwin Stock, “Our Friend Montaigne, Or the Revolt Against Culture” (Vol 11.2)


V O L U M E   1 0
ESSAY    Harry Epstein, “The Relevance of Newman’s Apologia to Its Modern Reader” (Vol 10.3)


V O L U M E   9
ESSAY    Louis O. Mink, “Reading Finnegan’s Wake” (Vol 9.1)


V O L U M E   8
ESSAY    Martin Bickman, “Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds: Another Look at Structure and Meaning in Walden” (Vol 8.2)


V O L U M E   7
ESSAY    Walter H. O’Briant, “Man and Nature: Some Reflections on Two Philosophic Tendencies” (Vol 7.4)


V O L U M E   6
ESSAY    David A. Fleming, “Literary Interpretation Today: Assessment and a Reorientation” (Vol 6.4)


V O L U M E   5
ESSAY    Leroy T Howe., “The Alienation of Widsom and Knowledge in Contemporary Life” (5.4)


1 9 7 0
ESSAY    W. B. Patrick, “Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs: ‘spare now a cagey John / a whilom’” (5.2)

SPECIAL THANKS TO ASHLEY DURRANCE AND MORGAN SHAFFER FOR THEIR INVALUABLE ASSISTANCE IN COMPILING OUR HOEPFNER ARCHIVES.




A Tribute

FROM VOL 4.2, SPRING 1970

To those of us here at Auburn who remember affectionately the little scholar who “walked the heaviest,” it seems fitting that the memorial tribute written by a young colleague be reprinted in our pages. The beauty of dogwood time has now passed twice since Ted Hoepfner left us; but the beauty of his selfless humanism, as reflected in Mr. Lambert's poem, remains a burden not so hard to keep. The poem appeared originally in the Auburn Alumnews, May, 1968.

    Norman A. Brittin
    Eugene Current-Garcia
    Jack D. Durant
    Barbara A. Mowat

In Memory of Professor Theodore Hoepfner

By JOE LAMBERT



    I

Spring has burst the dogwood to heaps
That hang on trees like snow.
You did not live to know
Once more that beauty is a burden hard to keep.
You knew the turn of the hour's bell
But disembodied air.
Beneath the aged tower
You made your hermitage a heaven and a hell.


    II

The watchman said, “he walked the heaviest
Of any little man I ever saw,”
And laughed at his own odd memory.
But suddenly, uncertainly,
Because he may have laughed at death,
He added simply, “I liked to talk to him,”
And continued on his rounds, content
That he had made amends if he had caused offense.


    III

Looking at an empty page
Your office-mate recalls
The scholared madrigals
That showed the wisdom of another age.
You held Atlantean a world
Much greater than our own!
“Perhaps he'll come again
To sit and cradle to his breast these curled
And crinkled leaves, these books. I'll leave
Them undisturbed awhile,”
Said his kinsman, then chilled
To compose himself to half-belief.


    IV

The night you died it was winter still.
The wind blew hard; dead leaves began to rise.
Your room was quiet except for your death-draws.
You made your death as distant as your life.
Your mind of minds obeyed the ancient rite,
Made the secret resignation
That life can mean no more.
Oh, underneath the tower,
In a life and death like wind,
You knew the burden of yourself, you knew
That beauty is a burden hard to keep.