WHAT A PRIZE! Tony Hoagland wins $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize
University of Houston poetry professor Tony Hoagland has won the $50,000 Jackson Poetry Prize, according to Poets & Writers Inc., a New York City-based nonprofit group for creative writers. If you’re a little short on money — who isn’t? — poets, you might aspire to enter this sort of big-prize contest.
The judges said of Hoagland’s work:
“It’s hard to imagine any aspect of contemporary American life that couldn’t make its way into the writing of Tony Hoagland or a word in common or formal usage he would shy away from. He is a poet of risk: he risks wild laughter in poems that are totally heartfelt, poems you want to read out loud to anyone who needs to know the score and even more so to those who think they know the score. The framework of his writing is immense, almost as large as the tarnished nation he wandered into under the star of poetry.”
Hoagland has written three books of poetry:
What Narcissism Means to Me
Donkey Gospel
Sweet Ruin
His writing has appeared widely in journals, including American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and Ploughshares.
Hoagland has won awards for his teaching and his humor. He is also on the faculty of the Warren Wilson low-residency MFA program.
Here’s a YouTube video of a Hoagland poem:
