Vievee Francis Wins Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award

Pacific University MFA in Writing faculty member Vievee Francis is the 2017 recipient of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for her book Forest Primeval (Northwestern University Press, 2016). The world's largest monetary prize for a single collection of poetry, the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award is given annually to a midcareer poet for a book published in the previous year. Unlike many literary awards, which are coronations for a successful career or body of work, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award was created to both honor the poet and provide the resources that allow artists to continue working towards the pinnacle of their craft.

Francis is also the author of Horse in the Dark, (Northwestern University Press, 2012), which won the Cave Canem Northwestern University Poetry Prize for a second collection; and Blue-Tail Fly (Wayne State University, 2006). Her work has appeared in numerous print and online journals, textbooks, and anthologies, including Best American Poetry (2010 & 2014) and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African American Poetry. In 2009 she received a Rona Jaffe Writer’s Award, and most recently the 2016 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Forest Primeval. She serves as an associate editor of Callaloo, and as an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.