Jane Tucker Named Undergraduate Winner of Felix Christopher McKean Memorial Award

Jane Tucker
Photo: Submitted
Jane Tucker

The Program in Creative Writing and Translation is pleased to announce that Jane Tucker has been awarded the undergraduate Felix Christopher McKean Memorial Award.

Tucker's poem "Sonnet for Two Girls in the Next Town Over" appears in Issue 12 of The Diamond Line, the U of A's undergraduate literary magazine, this spring.

Tucker is a sophomore Creative Writing student from Springdale. She enjoys writing both poetry and prose and often finds herself inspired by her childhood experiences growing up in Arkansas. 

About her award-winning poem, Tucker had this to say: "The poem 'Sonnet for Two Girls in the Next Town Over' was inspired by the poet's younger sisters and attempts to explore the slow distance that appears when you stop growing up with someone. The sonnet is an effort to package the complicated relationship and emotions that come with having siblings and condense them into 14 lines."

The award was founded in 1945 to honor the memory of McKean, an Arkansas native of Lockesburg who, while studying foreign languages, business and mathematics at the U of A, discovered a passion for writing poetry. After McKean was killed in the line of duty during World War II, his mother established the award with funds from his serviceman life insurance, stipulating that it be granted to students as a literary award for poetry.

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Contacts

Jane VB Larson, associate director, MFA Program in Creative Writing and Translation
Department of English
479-575-4301, mfa@uark.edu