Fanny Howe Wins Poetry Prize

As reported in the LA Times, Fanny Howe was just awarded the $100,000 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, awarded each year to a "living US poet whose lifetime accomplishments warrant extraordinary recognition." Her poetry collections include Gone (University of California Press, 2003), Selected Poems (UC Press, 2000), On the Ground (Graywolf Press, 2004), and The Lyrics (Graywolf, 2007). Howe has also written five novels and two collections of essays.

In announcing the award, the Poetry Foundation said Fanny Howe's poetry "can be elusive and hermetic, and then abruptly and devastatingly candid; it is marked by the pressures of history and culture, yet defiantly, transcendently lyrical. She is a demanding and deeply rewarding artist, and her body of work seems larger, stranger, and more permanent with each new book she publishes."