Meet The Poetry Prize Judges!

We’re thrilled to announce that three extraordinary poets will be judging the 6th Annual Jack Grapes Poetry Prize this year.

The Poetry Prize submission period ends August 31, 2018. Rules and submission information here.

The Judges

F. Douglas BrownF. Douglas Brown is the author of ICON (Writ Large Press, 2018), and Zero to Three (University of Georgia 2014), the 2013 Cave Canem Poetry Prize recipient selected by Tracy K. Smith. He also co-authored with poet Geffrey Davis, Begotten (Upper Rubber Boot Books 2016), a chapbook of poetry as part of Upper Rubber Boot Book’s Floodgate Poetry Series. Brown, an educator for over 20 years, currently teaches English at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, an all-boys Jesuit school. He is both a Cave Canem and Kundiman fellow. His poems have appeared in the Academy of American Poets, The PBS News Hour, The Virginia Quarterly (VQR), Bat City Review, The Chicago Quarterly Review (CQR), The Southern Humanities Review, The Sugar House Review, Cura Magazine, and Muzzle Magazine. He is co-founder and curator of un::fade::able – The Requiem for Sandra Bland, a quarterly reading series examining restorative justice through poetry as a means to address racism. When he is not teaching, writing or with his two children, Isaiah and Olivia, he is busy DJing in the greater Los Angeles area.

Rocio CarlosRocío Carlos is the author of Coyolxhauqui, Los Angeles (Archetype Press, 2012), A World Below (Mindmade books, 2014), and (the other house) (Archetype Press, 2016) and co-author of ex her pt (wirecutter collective, 2016). Her poems have appeared in Chaparral, Angel City Review, The Spiral Orb and Cultural Weekly. Most recently, her work was included in LACMA’s Pacific Standard time exhibition: Those of This America. With the poet Terry Wolverton, she participated in the DIS.ARTICULATIONS project through Entropy Magazine. Her collaborative book with the poet Rachel Mcleod Kaminer is forthcoming from The Operating System in 2018. She is co-publisher of the Wirecutter Collective and is currently completing a book entitled (the other house). She was selected as a 2003 Pen Center “Emerging Voices” fellow.

Alexis Rhone FancherAlexis Rhone Fancher is published in Best American Poetry 2016, Rattle, Hobart, Verse Daily, Plume, Tinderbox, Diode, Nashville Review, Duende, Wide Awake, Poets of Los Angeles, and elsewhere. Her books include: How I Lost My Virginity to Michael Cohen & other heart stab poems (Sybaritic Press, 2014), State of Grace: The Joshua Elegies (KYSO FLASH Press, 2015), Enter Here (KYSO FLASH Press, 2017), and Junkie Wife (Moon Tide Press, 2018), the story of her first, disastrous marriage. Her photographs have been published worldwide, including the covers of Witness, Nerve Cowboy, Chiron Review, Heyday, and Pithead Chapel. Poetry editor of Cultural Weekly since November of 2012, Alexis has been nominated for 15 Pushcart Prizes and 4 Best of the Net Awards. She lives with her husband on the cliffs of San Pedro, California, a sleepy beach town 20 miles from her former digs in downtown LA.

Photo by Alexis Rhone Fancher.

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