In collaboration with Miami Dade College, the thirty-four-year-old National Poetry Series has established a new book award to accompany its five annual prizes, for a collection of Spanish-language verse.
The winner of the inaugural Paz Prize for Poetry will receive five hundred dollars, and Akashic Books will publish the winning book in a bilingual edition.
The competition, open to American poets writing in Spanish, will begin accepting manuscript entries on May 1 and will close on June 15. Finalists will be announced in July, and a winner, selected by Puerto Rican American poet Victor Hernández Cruz, will be named in September.
"In our increasingly diverse nation, poetry in translation is not just desired, but necessary," says Alina Interian, executive director of Miami Dade College's literary hub, the Center, in a press release. "It allows for shared experience across cultures and greater understanding, and for even more beauty in our world."
Complete guidelines for the Paz Prize are available on the National Poetry Series website.