Cave Canem, the national organization known as a "major watering hole and air pocket for Black poetry" in North America, has named its eleventh annual poetry book prize winner.
Judge Elizabeth Alexander selected Philadelphia poet Iain Haley Pollock's collection Spit Back a Boy for the award, which includes one thousand dollars and publication of the book by University of Georgia Press.
Among the poets whose debuts were published through the award in the past are Pulitzer Prize–winner Natasha Trethewey; Major Jackson, a Pew Fellow and Whiting Writers' Award–winner; and the recipient of this year's Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative fellowship, Tracy K. Smith, who also won a Whiting Writers' Award. Also recognized this year is Vida Cross, who received an honorable mention for her manuscript "Bronzeville at Night: 1949."
For those looking to sample of Pollock's poetry before his book's release in spring 2011, several of his poems can be read online in journals such as Agni Online, Boston Review, and the Drunken Boat.
Cave Canem's next deadline for first-book manuscript submissions from African American poets is April 30, 2011.