A new poetry prize named for poet Michael Waters, a professor in the Department of English, was announced in December by Southern Indiana Review (SIR), a literary magazine published twice a year by the University of Southern Indiana with the support of the Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Matthew Guenette, a SIR contributing editor, describes Waters as “among the finest poets of his generation, a writer I have long considered a poet’s poet, an innovative technician with an illuminating, wry, and ever-empathetic voice.”
The Michael Waters Poetry Prize, which will be awarded annually, will include $2,000 and publication by SIR Press for a full-length poetry manuscript written in English. Professor Waters will judge the entries, which can include up to 80 poems.
Waters has written 10 books of poetry, including Gospel Night (2011); Darling Vulgarity, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2006); and Parthenopi: New and Selected Poems, finalist for the Paterson Poetry Prize (2001). His poems have appeared in various journals, including The Yale Review, The Paris Review, The Kenyon Review, Poetry, The Georgia Review, and Rolling Stone. Among his awards are fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Fulbright Foundation. Waters resides in Ocean, NJ.