2015 Shelley Memorial Award

Born in Georgia in 1963, D. A. Powell is a brave, thrilling, funny poet, who has mixed both conventional and non-conventional techniques in his poems, which move back and forth between popular culture and more complicated themes, like religion and AIDS. Powell's three astonishingly original books—Tea, Lunch, and Cocktail (recently published together as Repast)—are considered indispensable works of remembering. Though he is a syntactically inventive poet, Powell is also accessible. His poems can be witty and emotional, or to put it another way, fresh and modern seeming, though his subjects are as old as time. Even while writing about the California landscape of his childhood, Powell, wrestles with eternal themes of love and the dissolution of the body. He is a boldly original, unforgettable poet.