HWS News
18 November 2021 Fantastic Ekphrastic
Associate Professor of English Kathryn Cowles’ forthcoming manuscript is a 2021 Poetry Society of America award winner.
Associate Professor of English Kathryn Cowles’ newest manuscript, a collection of poems titled Notes on the Imminent Art Show is the 2021 recipient of Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America.
The Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award recognizes poetry from a manuscript-in-progress. American poet, essayist and New York Times columnist Elisa Gabbert selected Cowles’ manuscript for the award. In her citation on Cowles’ work, she describes Notes on the Imminent Art Show as “poignant, captivating, often exquisite work.” Read the citation here.
All of the poems in Cowles’ forthcoming manuscript are ekphrastic, meaning they vividly describe a work of art. Each of the poems have as their title “something that resembles a museum placard,” Cowles explains, such as the selection published on the Poetry Society of America website “Moon. Eleanor Eleanor. Oil on canvas. 2018.”
Here, Cowles reads “Moon. Eleanor Eleanor. Oil on canvas. 2018” for the Poetry Society of America YouTube Channel.
Additional poems from Cowles’ manuscript have been published in Boston Review, The Georgia Review, Colorado Review, New Ohio Review, New American Review and Diagram. Cowles is also the author of Maps and Transcripts of the Ordinary World (2019) and Eleanor, Eleanor, not your real name (2008), a Brunsman Poetry Prize Winner.
A membership-based organization, the Poetry Society of America supports poets and poetry through 12 annual awards contests, chapbook fellowships and national events.