Danielle Badra has been named the winner of the 2021 Etel Adnan Poetry Prize. Each year the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize awards publication to a first or second book of poetry by a writer of Arab heritage. The prize is supported by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas. It is named for Lebanese poet, essayist, and visual artist Etel Adnan, described by the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States as “arguably the most celebrated and accomplished Arab American author writing today.”
Badra is being honored for her collection Like We Still Speak, which will be published by the University of Arkansas Press in the fall of 2021. Series editors Hayan Charara and Fady Joudah said of this year’s selection: “Danielle Badra’s poems strive to make sense of that most present yet often elusive condition — being human — and she does so with insight, grace, and originality. Her attention to grief is polyphonic. The voices of those lost to her become voices we embrace. We’re thrilled to help her bring this book into the world.”
Badra, who is of Syrian and Lebanese heritage, was born and raised in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and currently resides in Virginia. She is an alumna of the master of fine arts degree program at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.