Graduate Program
Awards
Academy of American Poets Award
The Academy of American Poets Award is a national poetry award for college students. In 1955, The Academy of American Poets established its University and College Poetry Prize program at ten schools. The Academy now sponsors nearly 180 annual prizes for poetry at colleges and universities nationwide.
Again this year Miami University offers two Academy of American Poets awards of $100 each for an undergraduate and a graduate student; these students do not have to be English majors. The submission deadline for 2007 is February 22. The Academy’s Harris S. Abrahams Poetry Prize will go to an undergraduate, and the Betty Jane Abrahams Memorial Poetry Prize will go to a graduate student.
A hundred dollars may not be a huge amount nowadays, but a C-note has always been the payoff—going back to the 1950s. The prestige of winning an Academy of American Poets Prize is enormous, akin in a small way to winning a Pushcart or even a Pulitzer Prize. A number of winners’ poems will be included in a handsome booklet which the Academy publishes every five years or so. For Miami’s contest, this year’s judge will be a published off-campus poet.
Many of America’s most esteemed poets won their first recognition through an Academy College Prize, including Diane Ackerman, Toi Derricotte, Mark Doty, Alice Fulton, Tess Gallagher, Louise Glück, Allen Grossman, Jorie Graham, Kimiko Hahn, Joy Harjo, Robert Hass, Li-Young Lee, Brad Leithauser, J. D. McClatchy, Heather McHugh, Gregory Orr, Robert Pinsky, Sylvia Plath, Mark Rudman, Mary Jo Salter, Gjertrud Schnackenberg, George Starbuck, Mark Strand, and Charles Wright.
Submission Instructions
A stapled, typed or printed packet of no more than five (5) poems—with a total of no more than 10 pages—should be placed in Prof. James Reiss’s mailbox in 356 Bachelor Hall by 5 p.m. on the deadline date (TBA). Students should type or print their names and local phone numbers in the upper right-hand corner of every page. For more information, contact Jim Reiss.
Departmental Awards
Students in our graduate programs are encouraged to apply for several annual department awards. Calls for Applications are issued early in the second semester, and the winners are presented with the awards at the annual department awards ceremony in the spring.
Carolyn Washburn Houtchens Award
The Carolyn Washburn Houtchens Award recognizes academic achievement of students in the M.A. in literature program. The $500 award is made in the student’s second year on the basis of his/her first year’s achievement.
Spiro Peterson Award
The Spiro Peterson Award recognizes excellence in scholarship, research, and teaching. Doctoral program students in their second year and beyond are eligible for the $1,000 award.
Outstanding Teacher Awards
The department’s Outstanding Teacher Awards are traditionally given to one M.A. student and one Ph.D. student who exemplify excellence as classroom teachers. Winners receive $100, and their names are engraved on a plaque in the department office. (The College of Arts and Science also offers an annual Outstanding Teacher Award for graduate students.)