Claremont, California, Feb. 12, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Feb 12, 2024-- Claremont Graduate University is proud to announce the winners of the 30th anniversary of the prestigious Kingsley & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards. Paisley Rekdal (West: A Translation, Copper Canyon Press) is the winner of the $100,000 Kinglsey Tufts Award, and Jacqui Germain (Bittering the Wound, Autumn House Press) is the winner of the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award. Both awards commend outstanding poetry volumes published in the preceding year, with a legacy that includes books by luminaries such as Henri Cole, Tom Sleigh, Patricia Smith, and Ross Gay.
“I am extremely grateful for this gift of time and money, which the award both represents and grants,” said Rekdal. “But even more, I am grateful for the extraordinary validation this award gives me to be as ambitious as I can be as a poet.”
Rekdal is the author of four books of nonfiction and seven books of poetry, including Nightingale; Appropriate: A Provocation; and, most recently, West: A Translation. She is the editor and creator of the digital archive projects West, Mapping Literary Utah, and Mapping Salt Lake City. Her work has received the Amy Lowell Poetry Traveling Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an NEA Fellowship, Pushcart Prizes, the Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellowship, a Fulbright Fellowship, and various state arts council awards. The former Utah poet laureate, she teaches at the University of Utah, where she directs the American West Center.
Jacqui Germain is a published poet, journalist, and former student and labor organizer living and working in St. Louis, Missouri. Her debut collection of poetry, Bittering the Wound, won the 2021 CAAPP Book Prize, selected by Douglas Kearney.
“I’m genuinely shocked—first, to even be included in such admirable and ambitious company as a finalist, and second, to have my collection selected for the award,” Germain said of receiving the Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
She has received fellowships from the Economic Security Project, the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission, Jack Jones Literary Arts, Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, and the Poetry Foundation’s Emerging Poets Incubator. Germain served as the 2021-2022 Economic Security Project Fellow with Teen Vogue, reporting on issues of economic inequality at the intersections of race and gender.
The 30th anniversary of the Kinglsey & Kate Tufts Poetry Awards underscores Claremont Graduate University’s dedication to fostering and honoring the literary arts. The awards stand as a beacon for emerging and established poets, contributing significantly to the vibrant tapestry of American poetry.
The final judges for the 2024 awards were:
- Lynne Thompson: Poet Laureate for the city of Los Angeles in 2021, board member of Los Angeles Review of Books and Cave Canem, and Scripps College Chair of the Board of Trustees.
- Ellen Bass: Poet, writer, and writing teacher; author of “Indigo”; and winner of the Lambda Literary Award and four Pushcart Prizes.
- Diana Khoi Nguyen: Poet and multimedia artist, author of Ghost Of,” and winner of the 2019 Kate Tufts Discovery Award.
- Carmen Giménez: Poet and editor, co-director of the Latinx poet community CantoMundo, and publisher of Graywolf Press.
- Divya Victor: Poet and associate professor at Michigan State University, author of “CURB,” and winner of the 2022 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award.
Starr Hall Claremont Graduate University 2534007420 prstarrhall@gmail.com
