A professor of African-American studies at Yale University, Elizabeth Alexander, has won the first annual Jackson Poetry Prize. The $50,000 award, sponsored by the nonprofit literary organization Poets & Writers, aims to recognize a poet of “exceptional talent” who has not yet received major national attention.
Ms. Alexander, the author of four books of poetry, has not exactly gone unnoticed. Her collection American Sublime was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, and she has been the recipient of a Pushcart Prize and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, among other honors.
