Spanish Professor Wins Award for Book on Poetry

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In Pursuit of Poem Shadows: Pureza Canelo’s Second Poetics, by Kay Pritchett. Published by Bucknell University Press, 2011.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Kay Pritchett, professor of Spanish in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has won the 2012 South Central Modern Language Association Book Award for In Pursuit of Poem Shadows: Pureza Canelo’s Second Poetics, published in 2011 by Bucknell University Press. The association presents the award to the best scholarly or critical book on a topic within the field of modern languages. 

In her book, Pritchett deciphers the intricate language of Spanish poet Puerza Canelo. Pursuit of Poem Shadows reveals a recurrent philosophical position that differentiates Canelo’s mature work from her earlier poems. Pritchett finds that Canelo arrives at a crucial point in her writings in Pasión inédita (1990), where she recognizes that only the creative process can satisfy her desire and that love, the dominant symbol for creation, allows the pain of poetic failure to cease.

 “There are few people with whom I feel a stronger bond,” said Pritchett. “Reading her poetry and writing about her splendid evolvement as a writer has been at the center of my scholarship since 1989. She is challenging, but an encounter with such poetic genius is well worth the effort.”

Pritchett will receive the award at the South Central Modern Language Association’s 69th annual convention on November 8-10 at the historic Sheraton Gunter Hotel on the River Walk in San Antonio, Texas. The meeting’s theme will be “Death, Eros and the Literary Enterprise.”

“We are so pleased to hear of this honor,” said Joan Tuner, professor of Spanish and chair of the department of world languages, literatures and cultures. “Professor Pritchett is a great asset to our faculty, and it’s gratifying to see her talents recognized by others.”

As a recipient of a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship to Spain, Pritchett began her research into recent poetry, which has continued to be her primary interest. Pritchett’s other books include Four Postmodern Poets of Spain: A Critical Study with Translations of the Poems (1991), Pureza Canelo's Celda verde / Green Cell: A Critical Study with Translation of the Poems (2000), and Nature's Colloquy with the Word: Pureza Canelo's Early Poetics (2004). She has also translated two Bolivian novels, Jonah and the Pink Whale (1911) and In the Land of Silence (1994).