This week on My Poetic Side, we take a look at the poet who has received an honorary doctorate, the 2025 Pushcart Prize winner and the PoemJazz event.
National Poet of Wales Receives Honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon DLitt)
Issa, the National Poet of Wales, was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Letters (Hon DLitt) from Bangor University earlier this week. The award was made for her incredible contribution to Welsh culture, music, language, and the arts.
Issa, a Welsh-Iraqi filmmaker, poet, artist, and scriptwriter, is the first Muslim to hold the title of National Poet of Wales; a position she was appointed to in July 2022. Appointments are made to the position following a public nomination and a rigorous selection process. Growing up Issa listened to her maternal grandparents reading poetry in Welsh and she began writing her own poems at the age of 6.
She is a champion of cynghanedd, the ancient Welsh poetic form, and hopes to broaden people’s engagement with poetry during her time in the role. Her own poetry explores the themes of nature belonging and identity.
OWU Professor Named as 2025 Pushcart Prize Winner
Laurel Anderson, a professor at Ohio Wesleyan University, has been named as the winner of this year’s Pushcart Prize. The Prize is widely considered to be one of the most influential awards in publishing.
Anderson was astonished to hear the “Ransom Note,” her winning entry, had been picked for the first prize and is very excited for what this might mean for her poetry in terms of the wider readership that it will now gain as a result of being published in the “Pushcart Prize L” anthology. This is an anthology that is published annually and shares some of the best works of poetry, fiction, memoirs, and essays that have been published by independent presses. There are 200 contributing editors every year and 60 prize recipients from around 8000 nominations.
Anderson has been writing poetry since a very young age, with a brief break to focus on science and then having a family. When she was aged just 5 her father helped her to self-publish 2 chapbooks which were inspired by nursery rhymes. At college her major was biology, but she also took a graduate level poetry course alongside this. She has also been responsible for teaching an interdisciplinary science literature course at OWU which helps her to combine her favourite topics.
The Pushcart Prize is the latest in a long line of recent awards that she has won for her poetry, and she is now looking to publish her first book length collection.
Robert Pinsky’s PoemJazz
The renowned poet Robert Pinsky will be performing at PoemJazz in Truro. The event is a unique blend of music and poetry and will be taking place on 15th July.
Pinsky, who is a former US poet laureate, will be performing alongside a number of well-known jazz musicians as an interplay rather than with the music as a background soundtrack.
Pinsky was born in 1940 and was the first person to serve three terms as the US poet laureate, he is currently a professor of English at Boston University.
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