Today in our poetry news round-up, we look at the winner of this years Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. We also look at the Car Sandberg Writer-in-Residence.

Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award 2020

The poet Ariana Reines has been announced as the winner of this years $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The Kate Tufts Discovery Award has gone to Tiana Clark.

“A Sand Book”, is the latest collection of poetry from Reines. It is a collection in twelve parts that covers a range of topics from political to the more personal. The book has previously been longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry in 2019. Reines is the author of a further three collections of poetry and also an Obie winning playwright. She has taught at Columbia, Yale and UC Berkeley.

The Tufts award, which is $100,000, is based at Claremont Graduate University and is the biggest cash prize given for a single piece of poetry on an annual basis. It is now in its 28^th year. Previous winners include Patricia Smith and Ross Gay.

The Kate Tufts Award is given for a debut collection and has a cash prize of $10,000. Tiana Clark has won with her book “I Can’t Talk About the Trees Without the Blood”.

The winners were chosen from a group of 5 finalists per category, and this number had been reduced down from over 500 nominated works. The judges agreed on this year’s winners saying that they were both “big, bold and audacious books” and that they were very rich when it came to detail.

The winners will receive their awards during a ceremony that will take place on 15^th April. This will be followed with a public reading of some of their poetry on the 16^th April. This will take place in the Huntington Library in San Marino.

2020 Carl Sandburg Writer-in-Residence

Anthony (Tony) Robles has been announced as this year’s Carl Sandburg writer-in-residence. His residency will run from 18^th March to 8^th April.

Robles is a native of San Francisco, and the nephew of Al Robles, a Filipino-American historian and poet who campaigned for social justice.

He has previously been shortlisted for the position of poet laureate in San Francisco. He is the author of two books of short stories and poetry. His work takes inspiration from the issues of gentrification, police violence within communities of colour and eviction. He has also written two books for children.

During his time in residency, he is hoping that he will be able to honour the legacy of Sandburg. He is also planning on working on his current work in progress, a novel entitled “Fillmore Flip”. The book is based on his family life in the Fillmore district. He will also work to promote poetry.

The program that is run alongside the Writer-in-Residence offers local people of all ages the chance to learn about poetry and writing from local writers.

The program is sponsored by The Friends of Carl Sandburg.