Rochester, NY—BOA Editions, Ltd. is pleased to announce that Jan-Henry Gray is the winner of the 17th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. Selected by esteemed poet D. A. Powell from an original pool of more than 750 submissions, Gray’s winning manuscript Documents will be published by BOA Editions in April 2019 as part of the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series. Gray will also receive a $1,000 honorarium. D.A. Powell will write a foreword for the published collection.
Powell said of his selection: “There were so many deserving manuscripts, all so different, but I always have to remind myself that the role of the judge is to choose one. And the winning manuscript has to be exceptional in many ways. Documents by Jan-Henry Gray is that exceptional manuscript.”
Powell also selected a finalist and five semi-finalists:
FINALIST:
After Earth by Michael Lavers
SEMI-FINALISTS:
Extinction Theory by Kien Lam
Radium Girl by Celeste Lipkes
Pricks in the Tapestry by Jameson Fitzpatrick
A Far Place by Laurel Nakanishi
Homeboys With Slipped Halos by Michael Torres
Jan-Henry Gray was born in Quezon City, Philippines, and moved to California with his family when he was six years old. He grew up in Southern California and lived in San Francisco, where he cooked in restaurants for more than twelve years. He received his BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and his MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Juniper Writing Summer Institute and the inaugural Undocupoets Fellowship. He also received the 2014 Jack Kent Cooke Graduate Arts Award and the 2016 Lannan Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His work has been published in Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, The Rumpus, Tupelo Quarterly, Colorado Review, Fourteen Hills, Puerto del Sol, Southern Humanities Review, and other journals. He lives in Chicago with his husband where he writes and co-hosts events featuring writers, performers, artists, and musicians.
D. A. Powell is the author of five collections, including Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. His honors include the Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry, the Shelley Memorial Prize, and an Arts & Letters Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Powell’s most recent book is Repast: Tea, Lunch & Cocktails, a reissue of his first three collections with an introduction by novelist David Leavitt.
Established in 2000, the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is awarded annually to honor a poet’s first full-length collection of poetry. The winner is selected each year by a nationally recognized poet from a competitive pool of manuscripts. Winning manuscripts are published within the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series. Recent Poulin Prize winners have included Cenzontle by Marcelo Hernandez Castillo (April 2018) and When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities by Chen Chen, which was longlisted for the 2017 National Book Award for Poetry and won the GLCA New Writers Award. Other renowned debuts in the New Poets of America Series include Rose by Li-Young Lee, Awake by Dorianne Laux, and The Philosopher's Club by Kim Addonizio.
Submissions for the 18th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize will be accepted August 1–November 30, 2018. Patricia Smith, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, will serve as judge. The winner will be announced in spring 2019.
Thank you to everyone who submitted a manuscript for this year's A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize.
Congratulations, Jan-Henry!
