Jorie Graham Wins Poetry Prize

The poet's book Places won the 2012 Forward prize for a poetry collection.

Jorie Graham

Poet Jorie Graham, Harvard’s Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory, has become the first American woman to win the Forward Prize for best collection, awarded by England’s Forward Arts Foundation. The prize, which carries an award of £10,000, honors her twelfth collection, Place, published in April.

Graham is a much-honored poet who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996 for The Dream of the Unified Field: Selected Poems 1974-1994. The Forward panel of poets and critics called Place “startling, powerful, never predictable” and “a joy” to read. The Chicago-based Poetry Foundation has identified Graham as “perhaps the most celebrated poet of the American post-war generation.” With her students, she organized a live event celebrating Harvard poets, “Over the Centuries: Poetry at Harvard (A Love Story),” for the Arts First festival this spring.

A 2001 profile of Graham in Harvard Magazine explores her poetry, her life, and her teaching, including her 25 years at the Iowa Writers Workshop before she came to Harvard, where she succeeded Seamus Heaney as Boylston professor in 1998.

 

You might also like

Salsa Squared

Latin dancing fills the streets in Harvard Square   

Pony Plunges

Scrapbooking a woman who rode horses into the sea

Sister Acts and Cyanotypes

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.

Most popular

Harvard Layoffs Continue, with More to Come

In the wake of federal government actions, several Harvard schools and institutes are cutting costs.

Agree to Disagree

The Undergraduate asks if intellectualism is really on life support.

Jodie Foster Honored at Radcliffe Day

The actress and director discussed her film career and her transformative time at Yale.

Explore More From Current Issue

Harvard Medalists

Four people honored for exceptional service to the University

Julia Rooney’s Cyanotype Art At Harvard

Julia Rooney’s paintings cross the analog-digital divide.