Palestinian American poet Fady Joudah receives $100,000 prize

NEW YORK (AP) — Fady Joudah, a Palestinian American poet who has said he writes for the future because “the present is demolished,” has received a $100,000 award from Poets & Writers.

Joudah is this year’s winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize, given to an American writer of “exceptional talent. He was chosen by a panel of three poets: Natalie Diaz, Gregory Pardlo and Diane Seuss.

The judges’ citation, released Thursday, noted Joudah’s “significant and evolving body of work, distinguished by his courage to speak in the face of the unspeakable, in poems of lyric concision and intensity.”

Joudah’s books include “The Earth in the Attic” and “Tethered to the Stars,” along with English-language translations of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish. His other honors include winning the Yale Series of Younger Poets competition, in 2007, and receiving a PEN USA Literary Award.

The Jackson prize was established in 2007, and has previously been given to Sonia Sanchez, Joy Harjo and Claudia Rankine among others.