Erin Rodoni is the author of Body, in Good Light (Sixteen Rivers Press, 2017) and A Landscape for Loss (NFSPS Press, 2017), which won the 2016 Stevens Award sponsored by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies. Her poems have been included in Best New Poets 2014, nominated for Pushcart Prizes, and honored with awards from AWP and Ninth Letter. She lives in the San Rafael, CA, with her husband and two young daughters.

Erin responded to news of the award as follows: On this ordinary morning, in the rush of getting ready for school, with the baby, now almost 1, crying, and my 5-year-old-whining, I received the extraordinary gift of this award, and feel such gratitude to have these wild, wonderful daughters and poetry in my life. And to have my work recognized in this way.

Asked to provide some background to her award winning poem, Erin had this to say: “Caesura” was the first poem I wrote after my second daughter was born. I hadn’t written for a while, and was starting to wonder when my creativity would return, well, the verbal form of my creativity; I guess having a baby is pretty “creative.” Then, on an ordinary walk down to the grocery store with my 5 month old daughter, I remembered my Catholic grandmother’s belief in “Limbo” and the lines began arriving like gifts.

2017 Prize Judge

2017 Editorial Board

Kim Addonizio is the author of six poetry collections, two novels, two story collections, and two books on writing poetry, The Poet’s Companion (with Dorianne Laux) and Ordinary Genius. She has received fellowships from the NEA and Guggenheim Foundations, two Pushcart Prizes, and was a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me. Two new books are out this summer: Mortal Trash: Poems (Norton) and a memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress (Viking/Penguin). She teaches and performs internationally.

David Dabydeen moved to the UK from Guyana aged 13. He won the Quiller-Couch English Prize whilst at Cambridge, and the Commonwealth Poetry Prize for “Slave Song.” He gained a PhD in 18th Century Literature and Art at University College London in 1982, and a research fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford. He is currently a professor at the University of Warwick, and Guyana’s Ambassador for Unesco. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2000 and has received many awards including the Hind Rattan Award for his outstanding contribution to Indian Diaspora Literature, and the Anthony N. Sabga award.

Vona Groarke has published seven collections of poetry with Gallery Press, the latest being Selected Poems (2016). Her book-length essay on art frames, Four Sides Full, is due in October. Her poems have recently appeared in Yale Review, The New Yorker, Kenyon Review, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, The Guardian, Poetry and Poetry Review. Current Editor of Poetry Ireland Review and Selector for the Poetry Book Society (U.K.), she teaches in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester in the UK.

Susan Nalugwa Kiguli is an academic and poet. She holds a PhD in English from The University of Leeds (UK) sponsored by the Commonwealth Scholarship Scheme. She was the African Studies Association Presidential Fellow 2011, which presented her with an opportunity to read her poetry at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. She has served as the chairperson of FEMRITE, Uganda Women Writers’ Association, and she currently serves on the Advisory Board for the African Writers Trust (AWT). She was the chief convener for Celebrating Ugandan Writing: Okot p’Bitek’s Song of Lawino at 50, held at Makerere University in March 2016. She is the author of The African Saga and Home Floats in a Distance/Zuhause Treibt in der Ferne(Gedichte): a bilingual edition in English and German.

Arvind Krishna Mehrotra was born in 1947 in Lahore. He has published five books of poems including Collected Poems: 1969-2014, and two of translation, The Absent Traveller: Prakrit Love Poetry and Songs of Kabir. Among the books he has edited are the Oxford India Anthology of Twelve Modern Indian Poets and A History of Indian Literature in English. He lives in Dehradun, India. Photo Credit: Nina Subin.

Pascale Petit’s sixth collection Fauverie was shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and won the Manchester Poetry Prize. Her fifth collection What the Water Gave Me: Poems after Frida Kahlo was shortlisted for both the T S Eliot Prize and Wales Book of the Year, and was a Book of the Year in the Observer. Four of her collections were shortlisted for the T S Eliot Prize and chosen as Books of the Year in the Times Literary Supplement, Independent and Observer. She is the recipient of a Cholmondeley Award. Bloodaxe will publish her seventh book Mama Amazonica in 2017. She lives in the UK.

Talya Rubin is a writer and performance maker. Her poetry won the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers and was short-listed for the Winston Collins/Descant prize for Best Canadian poem and the Montreal International Poetry Prize. She won the “Battle of the Bards” at Harbourfront and was invited to attend IFOA in 2015. Her first book of poetry Leaving the Island was published with Véhicule Press in April 2015. She also runs an interdisciplinary performance company, Too Close to the Sun. Talya holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She currently lives in Montreal.

Carmine Starnino has published five volumes of poetry, including This Way Out (2009), which was nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He is the author of two collections of literary essays, A Lover’s Quarrel (2004), and Lazy Bastardism (2012), and has edited of The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry (2005). His poems and essays have appeared in Poetry, Parnassus, New American Writing, Drunken Boat and Poetry Review. His poetry has also been included in Best American Poetry 2007 and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. He lives in Montreal, Quebec, where he is poetry editor for Vehicule Press. His most recent book of poetry is Leviathan (2016).

Mark Tredinnick is a celebrated poet, nature writer, writing teacher, and memoirist. He lives and writes along the Wingecarribee River, southwest of Sydney. He is the poet in residence this year with the Sydney Botanic Gardens. Winner of the inaugural Montreal Poetry Prize in 2011, and of the Cardiff Poetry Prize, in 2011, Tredinnick is the author most recently of Almost Everything I Know (2015, Flying Island), and Bluewren Cantos (Pitt Street Poetry, 2013). His many books include Fire Diary, The Blue Plateau, and The Little Red Writing Book. In November 2015, Mark was the featured writer in China’s leading literary journal, World Literature. His third poetry collection, The Days and Nights, will be out in 2016 from Pitt Street Poetry; he is at work on a fourth collection, to be published in the US in May 2016 and a memoir, Reading Slowly at the End of Time.

Joseph Akawu Ushie lectures at the University of Uyo, Nigeria. A Fellow of the 2002 Fulbright Programme and his State Government’s Honouree for outstanding contributions to the growth of African Literature and Culture, Dr Ushie has judged several national literary competitions. Ushie was Africa’s representative at the 2010 Philippine PEN 50th Anniversary Celebrations. His poetry has been widely anthologized, and his poem “Africa Today” was in the 2015 Global Poetry Anthology. His research interests include English Stylistics, Sociolinguistics and African Literature. He has been a Visiting Lecturer at the Niger Delta University and at the Omar Bongo University, Libreville, Gabon.