Pavlić awarded National Poetry Series prize

Professor Ed Pavlić is one of our most accomplished faculty members, and even as a star among many, his sterling accomplishments as a poet, critic and cultural interlocutor stand out. His impressive resume recently received another bolded line as a winner of the Open Competition from the NPS for 2014:

The National Poetry Series recently announced the five winners of its 2014 Open Competition, which included "Let's Let That Are Not Yet: Inferno" by the University of Georgia's Ed Pavlić, a professor of English and creative writing in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The National Poetry Series arranges publication of the winning books, scheduled to be released in summer 2015. The prize also includes a cash award, which has been raised to $10,000 from $1,000 thanks to a grant from the Lannan Foundation, which has awarded literary prizes since 1989.

About 1,200 manuscripts are entered for the open competition each year.

"Since the late 1970s, arguably more than any other American literary institution, the National Poetry Series has helped produce and publicize a portrait of our culture's real diversity, which is also its actuality," Pavlić said. "In a culture in which evidence, everywhere, seems designed, chillingly, to prove that all power is financial power and that all news is, at bottom, financial news, the Lannan Foundation's generous support of the NPS supports one crucial-at times seemingly powerless-need of the culture: that it be empowered, in ways against itself, for itself."

And indeed that is no small thing. In a society where money serves as the great indicator, it is notable that the NPS prize has been pushed into wider recognition with the increased prize purse. The publication of "Lets Let That Are Not Yet: Inferno" by Fence Books is the more important aspect, but if more people pay attention because of the added cultural currency (sorry), then all the better. Great job and congratulations to Pavlić.

Image: Professor Ed Pavlić