INDIGO MOOR WINS CAVE CANEM NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS POETRY PRIZE

Second from right, Indigo Moor.

Let me congratulate my friend and fellow poet Indigo Moor for winning the Inaugural CAVE CANEM NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS POETRY PRIZE. Northwestern Press, Cave Canem, this is a big deal. Below is the entire copy of the press release announcing the results:

NEW YORK, NY (June 5, 2009) — Cave Canem Foundation, Inc., North America’s premier “home for Black Poetry,” is pleased to announce that Indigo Moor has received the inaugural Cave Canem Northwestern University Press Poetry Prize for his manuscript, Through the Stonecutter’s Window, selected by Reginald Gibbons, Parneshia Jones and John Keene. Northwestern University Press will publish the collection in March 2010. Honorable Mentions were given to Remica L. Bingham
and JoAnne McFarland for their manuscripts, What We Ask of Flesh and Acid Rain, respectively.

Combining the efforts of the two organizations to celebrate and publish works of lasting cultural value and literary excellence, the prize is a second book award for African American poets. Of The Stonecutter’s Window, John Keene writes, “These poems open a sustained and impressive dialogue with the visual arts, history, the natural world, and the poetʹs dreams and nightmares, while dancing poly‐rhythmically across and down each page.” Reginald Gibbons says, “Always in motion, [Moor’s] lines are choreographed to make sense of all that is most elusive in meaning: music, violence, art, love, history, anger, race, belief, desire.”

POETS
Indigo Moor’s first book of poetry, Tap‐Root, was published in 2006 as part of Main Street Rag’s Editor’s Select Poetry Series. His poetry and short stories have appeared in such journals and anthologies as Xavier Review, LA Review, Poetry Now and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South. He has received the 2005 Vesle Fenstermaker Poetry Prize for Emerging Writers and finalist finishes for
the T.S. Eliot Prize, Crab Orchard First Book Prize, Saturnalia First Book Award, the Naomi Long
Indigo Moor

Madgett Book Award and the WordWorks Prize. He is a Cave Canem fellow and a graduate
member of the Artistʹs Residency Institute for Teaching Artists, and has received scholarships to the Summer Literary Series in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Idyllwild Summer Poetry Program, Indiana University Writer’s Conference and Napa Valley Writer’s Conference.

Remica L. Bingham’s first book of poems, Conversion (Lotus Press, 2007), won the Naomi Long Madgett Poetry Prize. Her work has been featured in New Letters, Crab Orchard Review and Essence, among other journals. Nominated for a Pushcart Prize, she is the recipient of the 2005 Hughes, Diop,Knight Poetry Award, and has attended the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshops. A Cave Canem fellow, she is the Writing Competency Coordinator at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia.

Visual artist and poet JoAnne McFarland’s poetry collections include Stills, a finalist in the Brick House Books Manuscript Competition; Flight Patterns; Lightfast; Brushstrokes; and Watermarks, chosen by Cornelius Eady as a finalist in the 2002 AWP Award Series. Her artwork is included in many private and public collections, including the Library of Congress, the Department of State and the
Columbus Museum of Art.

JUDGES
Poet, fiction writer, translator and literary critic Reginald Gibbons is the author of eight books of poetry, including Creatures of a Day, a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award. His novel, Sweetbitter, won the Anisfield Wolf Book Award. He has received Guggenheim and NEA fellowships and won the Carl Sandburg Prize and the Folger Shakespeare Libraryʹs O. B. Hardison Jr. Poetry Prize. Editor of TriQuarterly magazine, 1981 to 1997, and co‐founder of TriQuarterly Books, he is a professor of English, Classics, Spanish and Portuguese at Northwestern University, where he
is co‐director of the MA/MFA in Creative Writing and Director of the Center for the Writing Arts.

Recipient of the Gwendolyn Brooks Poetry Award and the Margaret Walker Short Story Award, Parneshia Jones has published in several anthologies, including Warpland: A Journal of Black Literature and Ideas, The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South, Limestone and America! What’s My Name.

She has been featured on Chicago Public Radio‐Chicago Amplified series and is a member of the Affrilachian Poets, a collective of Black voices from Appalachia. She is the head of sales and international rights for Northwestern University Press.
John Keene is the author of the award‐winning novel Annotations and the poetry collection Seismosis, with artwork by Christopher Stackhouse. His fiction, poetry, essays and translations have appeared in many journals, including African‐American Review, AGNI, Encyclopedia, Gay and Lesbian Review, Hambone, Indiana Review, Kenyon Review, New American Writing and Ploughshares. He is an Associate Professor of English and African American Studies and Director of the English Major in
Writing at Northwestern University.

Founded in 1996 by poets Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady to remedy the under‐representation of African American poets in writing workshops and MFA programs, Cave Canem is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets. Cave Canem has grown from an initial gathering of 26 poets to become an influential movement with a renowned faculty and a high‐achieving fellowship of 289 poets residing in 34 states. Its programs include an annual week‐long retreat, first and second book prizes, Legacy Conversations, Poets on Craft talks, writing workshops, publications and national readings. Such world‐class poets as Elizabeth Alexander, Lucille Clifton and Yusef Komunyakaa number among the organization’s faculty and judges.

To date, the organization has published Gathering Ground: A Reader Celebrating Cave Canem’s First Decade (University of Michigan Press, 2006)
and The Ringing Ear: Black Poets Lean South (The University of Georgia Press, 2007). For more information, go to cavecanempoets.org.
Since its inception in 1893, Northwestern University Press has been at the forefront in publishing important works of scholarship, as well as quality works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and literary criticism. In 1992, the Press joined forces with TriQuarterly magazine—Northwestern University's innovative literary journal aimed at a sophisticated and diverse readership, now a publication of the press—to establish the TriQuarterly Books imprint, which is devoted primarily to contemporary
American fiction and poetry. For more information, go to ww.nupress.northwestern.edu.