Back in April in this feed we shared the exciting news that two PennSound poets, Douglas Kearney and Ed Roberson, had been shortlisted for the international category of Canada's prestigious Griffin Poetry Prize (which is awarded annually to one Canadian poet and one from outside of the country). Today we're very happy to announce that Kearney was recently named as this year's winner of the international prize.
Kearney wins the award for his latest collection, Sho (Wave Books), which the judges' citation summarizes as the poet's "genius, vulnerability, and virtuosity on full display." "These poems live in the rhythms of negotiation and navigation, at the root of saying. They elide, slide, exist in fitful comprehension of our world – where the public and private collide," they observe, before concluding: "Always playful, forever in dialogue, Kearney’s poems come at being from all sides. This book is the crowning achievement of Kearney’s body of work to date." On PennSound's Douglas Kearney author page you'll find a selection of readings from 2005– 2018 from Philadelphia, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Cambridge. With any luck, we might hope to have some recordings of material from Sho in the near future.
We send our congratulations to Kearney, along with Roberson and the rest of the very deserving finalists, for this tremendous and well-deserved honor.
