Winner

2025 Oklahoma Book Award for Poetry

 

Cullen Whisenhunt’s collection is a force field, vibrating with energy – at times distant, at times closer to the surface. His keen observations of Nature and perception of history, layered with precise language and controlled structure, offers a cautious celebration of what it means to be human at this time in Oklahoma. Cautious, but a celebration nonetheless.

–Ken Hada, author of Come Before Winter

 

In Until Air Itself Is Tinted, Cullen Whisenhunt approaches his poems with a photographer’s keen eye, drawing into sharp focus everyday details that often go overlooked. In this collection, Whisenhunt creates a rich poetic texture, interwoven with cranes and herons, leafy sidewalks and cypress teeth. Indeed, these are poems we can sink our teeth into, the rich imagery set against a vivid backdrop of birdsong and Oklahoma soul.

–Jessica Isaacs, author of Deep August

Oklahoma Book Award, 2015