U of A Press, CantoMundo Establish Poetry Prize

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Arkansas Press, in partnership with CantoMundo, has established the CantoMundo Poetry Series and CantoMundo Poetry Prize.

The $1,000 prize will be awarded to a book of poetry by a contemporary U.S.-based Latina/o poet. The University of Arkansas Press will publish the book.

The editors of the series, Deborah Paredez and Celeste Guzmán Mendoza, will select the annual winner and write a preface for the book. They serve as co-directors of CantoMundo, a national organization that cultivates a community of Latina/o poets.

Paredez is the author of the poetry collection This Side of Skin and the critical study Selenidad: Selena, Latinos, and the Performance of Memory. Her poetry and essays have appeared in The New York Times, Poetry, Latino Studies Journal, and elsewhere. She teaches at the Columbia University Writing Program.

Guzmán Mendoza is the author of the poetry collection Beneath the Halo. Her poetry and essays have appeared in Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education, Telling Tongues: A Latin@ Anthology on Language Experience, and ¡Floricanto Sí!: U.S. Latina Poetry, and elsewhere.

"Working with the University of Arkansas Press on the CantoMundo Poetry Series is an opportunity for us to realize a key part of our mission, which is to disseminate works by Latina/o poets," said Paredez and Guzmán Mendoza. "We look forward to publishing the voices of contemporary Latina/o poets and thereby showcasing the best of American poetry today."

According to David Scott Cunningham, senior editor of the University of Arkansas Press, this new prize and series joins nicely with the press's long-running Miller Williams Poetry Series and the Etel Adnan Poetry Series, established this year.

"The University of Arkansas Press has long been committed to publishing diverse kinds of poetry by a diversity of poets," Cunningham said, "and we are excited to broaden that ambition by seeking to advance the work of Latino/a poets as part of the country's core literary identity."

Submissions for the prize are now open, with a deadline of this April 15 for the 2017 prize. To learn more about the prize, including submission requirements, visit uapress.com.

About the University of Arkansas Press:  Founded in 1980, the University of Arkansas Press is an academic publishing house that is part of the University of Arkansas. A member of the Association of American University Presses, it has as its central and continuing mission the publication of books that serve both the broader academic community and Arkansas and the region.

About CantoMundo: Founded in 2009, CantoMundo provides a space for the creation, documentation, and critical analysis of Latina/o poetry. It fulfills its mission to nurture and preserve the work of Latina/o poets by administering an annual writing retreat and workshop every July for Latina/o poets selected as fellows, sponsoring public readings that feature and facilitate regional communities of Latina/o poets, building an archival collection of contemporary Latina/o poetry in collaboration with the Benson Latin American Collection at the University of Texas-Austin, and organizing community outreach workshops that pair CantoMundo poets with local Latina/o writers.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines.