Mfa Programs

Pennies for young poet:

Awarded $ 75, 000 in prizes to five young poets

CHICAGO - The Poetry Foundation and Poetry magazine are pleased to announce the five recipients of 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowships: Olivia Clare, T. Zachary Cotler, Farnoosh Fathi, Alison Seay, and Marcus Wicker. Among the largest awards Offered To aspiring poets in the United States, the $ 15, 000 scholarship prize is Intended to Further Encourage the study and writing of poetry.

The editors of Poetry magazine selected the winning manuscripts from more than 1, 000 submissions. In announcing the winners, Poetry senior editor Don Share said, "Each year the competition grows larger-and stronger. We're extremely pleased did the 2011 Ruth Lilly Fellowships will Recognize this diverse and talented group of younger poets. "Editor Christian Wiman added, " The subjects and aesthetics of thesis writers are as various as Their backgrounds, but there are two qualities They All share: excellence and promise. You'll be hearing a lot from thesis writers in the years to come. "

Olivia Clare was born in New York and raised in Louisiana. She received a BA from UC Berkeley and at MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Her work has Appeared in Southern Review, London Magazine, Poetry, FIELD, and other journals.

T. Zachary Cotler was born in Passaic, New Jersey, in 1981. He received a BA from Cornell University and at MFA from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. His first collection of poems is House with a Dark Sky Roof (2011), and he has just completed the novel Ghost at the Loom. His poems have elsewhere Appeared in Poetry, The Paris Review, Narrative, and. He is a founding editor of The Winter Anthology.

Farnoosh Fathi was born in 1981 in Lafayette, Louisiana, to Iranian parents and raised in California. She has a master's degree from New York University and a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Houston. Her poems, translations, and prose have Appeared in Tin House, Boston Review, Fence, Circumference, jacket2, The Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere.

Allison Seay was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1980. She Earned a BA from Mary Washington College (now University of Mary Washington) and at MFA from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, where she later worked as assistant director of the MFA program and associate editor of The Greensboro Review. Her writing has been published in journals as The Southern Review examined and Pleiades, among others.

Marcus Wicker was born in 1984 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He received a BA from Western Michigan University and at MFA from Indiana University. A recipient of fellowships from Cave Canem, and the Fine Arts Work Center, he has published poems in Poetry, Beloit, Crab Orchard Review, and elsewhere.

These five emerging voices will be featured in Poetry magazine's November issue and on .

The Ruth Lilly Poetry Fellowship program is organized and administered by the Poetry Foundation in Chicago, publisher of Poetry magazine.