Jacqueline Allen Trimble, chair of the department of languages and literatures at Alabama State University in Montgomery was named as the recipient of the 2017 Balcones Poetry Prize from the Balcones Center for Creative Writing at Austin Community College in Texas. Dr. Trimble was honored for her book American Happiness (NewSouth Books, 2016), a collection of poetry.
The judges noted that “Trimble should never be taken lightly, but darn it, her poems are so often funny. She can face the darkness with courage and understanding, she can embrace joy with tenderness and sensuality, and she can find the seams and gaps where laughter lives. Hers is a refreshing new voice. Her poetry is intimate, humorous and irony-filled. She stares paradox in the eye and stares it down. The personal and the universal she treats as one in the same.”
Dr. Trimble is a graduate of Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama. She holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in English from the University of Alabama.