Patricia Smith has won the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement.
Poet Patricia Smith has won the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement. Smith is widely celebrated for her collections like Blood Dazzler and Incendiary Art, the latter of which was a finalist for the 2018 Pulitzer Prize. The award, presented by the Poetry Foundation, has previously honored the likes of W.S. Merwin, Kay Bryan, and poet laureate Joy Harjo.
The foundation also recently announced that poet and essayist Susan Briante has received the Pegasus Award for poetry criticism, honoring her essay collection Defacing the Monument, while five emerging poets have received coveted $25,800 Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Fellowships: Bryan Byrdlong, Steven Espada Dawson, Noor Hindi, Natasha Rao, and Simon Shieh.
“Every one of these extraordinary writers is a credit to the art form,” said the president of the Poetry Foundation, Michelle T. Boone, in a statement. “It is a joyous occasion to be able to celebrate artists in poetic lineage with one another, what they’ve created thus far, and what is yet to come.”
[via ABC News]
