Topping the headlines again, Arizona State University Associate Professor Natalie Diaz has been awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her collection “Postcolonial Love Poem,” which has been described as “an anthem of desire against erasure.”
The honor comes mere months after the MacArthur Fellow made history by becoming the youngest chancellor ever elected to the Academy of American Poets.
“I care so much for the book and for the people that the book has brought me to, but also for the people I hope the book could carry of my life, you know, of my beloveds and my strangers,” Diaz said. “And so in a lot of ways I don’t think I’ve ever felt this way about a prize before, whether it was winning a championship or some of these other prizes — in some ways I feel like the things I’m trying to fight for in language, this was a kind of recognition that I know that they matter even if it’s in a small way.”
ASU President Michael M. Crow shared the university’s congratulations, praising the poet’s work.
“There is unbelievable power when intelligence, creativity and insight fuse together,” Crow said. “That’s what Natalie Diaz brings to language and poetry, and her voice is incredibly important. This Pulitzer Prize is very well deserved, and the ASU community celebrates this profoundly good news with her today.”
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Links:
ASU News | Natalie Diaz (Wikipedia) | Pulitzer Prize
