Peace Poetry Award Winners Announced
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2013 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards. Married to Frank King Kelly, one of the founders of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Barbara Mandigo Kelly was a poet, pianist and peace advocate. Since 1995, the Foundation has made an annual series of awards to encourage poets to explore and illuminate positive visions of peace and the human spirit. The poetry awards are offered in three categories: Adult; Youth (13 to 18); and Youth (12 and under).
In the Adult category, Yuko Taniguchi was awarded First Place for her poem “A Child Hibakusha – Hiroshima 1947.” Ms. Taniguchi is the instructor of writing in the Center for Learning Innovation at the University of Minnesota Rochester. She also has conducted creative writing workshops for the Mayo Medical School, as well as the Mayo Foundation’s Cancer Center, as part of the Creative Renewal Series since 2004. Her first volume of poetry, Foreign Wife Elegy, and her first novel, The Ocean in the Closet, were both published by Coffee House Press. She is currently completing a collection of poetry, While the Earth Moves its Spine, which explores the recent earthquake and tsunami disaster in Northeastern Japan.
An Honorable Mention in the Adult category was awarded to Shawn Pittard from Sacramento, California for his poem “Morning’s Long Argument of Crows.” Mr. Pittard is a poet, screenwriter, and teaching artist. He is the author of two volumes of poetry, one of which, Standing in the River, was the winner of Tebot Bach’s 2010 Clockwise Chapbook Competition.
A second Honorable Mention in the Adult category was awarded to Aubrey Ryan for “Floodlings.” Ms. Ryan is the Collins Writer in Residence for the Midwest Writing Center and the poetry editor of Sundog Lit. Her work has appeared in Best New Poets, Anti-, Squat Birth Journal, DIAGRAM, Phantom Limb, Quarterly West, and elsewhere. She lives in Iowa with her husband and young son.
First Place in the Youth (13 to 18) category was awarded to Hayun Cho for her poem “A Necessary Poetry.” Ms. Cho is a freshman at Yale University and aspires to major in English or Literature. Her home town is Wilmette, Illinois.
An Honorable Mention in the Youth (13 to 18) category was awarded to Leila Grant from Chappaqua, New York for her poem “Trust in Peace.” Ms. Grant enjoys performing circus acts, playing tennis and piano, watching movies and reading. She loves to travel to new places.
In the Youth (12 and under) category, First Place was awarded to Pratyush Muthukumar from Cerritos, California for his poem “Reach Out.” In addition to writing poetry, his interests include painting, learning Chinese, building robots and running. He attends Frank C. Leal Elementary School.
For more information, including the other First Place and Honorable Mention poems in their entirety, previous years’ winners and the 2013 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards Guidelines, please visit the Foundation’s website at http://www.wagingpeace.org/menu/programs/awards-&-contests/bmk-contest/index.htm or contact the Foundation at (805) 965-3443.
