This year, two of the six winners of the National Book Critics Circle Awards are African Americans with current academic affiliations. They are Ross Gay who teaches in the creative writing program at Indiana University and Margo Jefferson who teaches at Columbia University and The New School.
The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is given annually to a mid-career poet. Ross Gay teaches in the creative writing program at Indiana University and for the low-residency master of fine arts degree program in poetry at Drew University in New Jersey.
Claremont Graduate University in California has announced five finalists for the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. Three of the five finalists are African American men.
The goal of the program, initially established at the Claremont Colleges, was to encourage Black male students, who many would not expect to go to college, to excel at mathematics and other subjects so that they would be prepared for college-level work.
Dr. Wilson-Oyelaran has served as the 17th president of the college since July 2005. A native of Los Angeles, Dr. Wilson-Oyelaran taught at the University of Ife in Nigeria for 14 years before returning to the U.S. in 1988.
Afaa Michael Weaver is the winner of the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award given by Claremont Graduate University to a mid-career poet so that they “can continue working towards the pinnacle of their craft.”
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