Elizabeth Knapp Wins National Poetry Award

FREDERICK, Maryland—Hood College Professor Elizabeth Knapp has won a $2,500 prize for work she submitted to the Poetry Society of America.

She won the society’s 2018 Robert H. Winner Memorial Award, which she publicly received at the society’s 108th Annual Awards Ceremony on April 10 at the National Arts Club in New York City.

Established by the family and friends of Robert H. Winner, whose first book of poems appeared when he was almost 50 years old, this award acknowledges original work being done mid-career by a poet who has not had substantial recognition. The award is open to poets over 40 who have published no more than one book.

“I am honored and humbled to have received the 2018 Robert H. Winner Award from the Poetry Society of America, particularly because the judge, Airea D. Matthews, is a contemporary poet whose work I greatly admire,” said Knapp.

Knapp’s award citation, written by Matthews states: “Knapp’s wry, smart and broad-ranging sonnet sequence deeply interrogates the articulations of American empire in our everyday lives … Through the deft and loose deployment of the sonnet, Elizabeth Knapp registers the heartbreak of an unrequited love, one in which the beloved country is wholly incapable of loving you.”

See Knapp’s page award-winning poem at www.hood.edu/elizabethknapp.

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