Claremont Graduate University in California has announced five finalists for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The award, which comes with a $100,000 prize, is given annually to a mid-career poet. The winner will be announced in March and honored at a ceremony on April 7.
Two of the five finalists are women with ties to the academic world.
Amy Gerstler is a professor in the creative writing program in the School of Humanities at the University of California, Irvine. She is being honored for her book Scattered at Sea (Penguin Books, 2015) Gerstler is a graduate of Pitzer College in Claremont, California, where she majored in psychology. She holds a master of fine arts degree in creative writing from Bennington College in Vermont. Earlier collections of poetry include Dearest Creature, Ghost Girl, and Medicine.
Jennifer Moxley is a professor of poetry and poetics at the University of Maine. She has been on the university’s faculty since 2000 and has served as director of creative writing. Professor Moxley is being honored for her book The Open Secret (Flood Editions, 2014). She studied literature and writing at the University of California, San Diego and the University of Rhode Island. She holds a master for fine arts degree from Brown University.