Congratulations to Kathleen Ma, who has just been selected for the Hoyt Jacobs Poetry Prize by Alice Quinn, former Executive Director of the Poetry Society of America!

Alice Quinn is the former Director of the Poetry Society of America and an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of the Arts. She was poetry editor at The New Yorke from 1987-2007 and at Alfred A. Knopf, Publishers, from 1976-1986. She is the editor of Edgar Allan Poe & The Juke-Box: Uncollected Poems, Drafts, and Fragments by Elizabeth Bishop, and she is currently at work editing Bishop’s journals and notebooks.

Quinn had this to say about Ma’s prize-winning packet of poems:

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The element of play and surprise is sometimes underestimated in creative work, but it is nonetheless a large part of what draws readers to reread something that has affected or moved or startled them, and I found myself rereading Kathleen Ma’s sequence of poems over and over because I was charmed by swerves and turns of phrase and by her sense of play.

It may be that she has surprised herself writing these poems because she set out to hone her skills as a translator. But whatever means to the avenue, she seems delighted to be on this path.

Why does the sentence “Breakfast will no longer be served in the bicycle factory.” delight? Why does the gleam that shows up several times in this packet gleam? Perhaps because it leads to a summary statement as memorable as this:

“A red gleam swarms the rehearsal
on the street    where we are enabling
an afternoon to grow from its roots until the end of time!”

And the ebullience of this formulation will stay with me, too:

“Ah!
the meeting of the meeting
of the meeting.”

“With enormous greed I/ want it all” Ma writes in another poem.

Life and literature is ready for your appetite!

Bravo for the way you are seeing things aslant and initiating your readers.

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The Hoyt Jacobs Memorial Poetry Prize is an annual poetry prize given in honor of MFA alumnae Hoyt Jacobs, who died on January 17, 2015. The prize is open to all Queens College MFA students currently enrolled in the program. A prize of $1,000 is awarded to the best poems submitted.

You can read more about the unique chances our students get access to during the program on our Opportunities page:

Opportunities

Congratulations, Kathleen!!!

Yesterday, we found out that MFA alum zakia henderson-brown was named as the Editor’s Choice for the 2025 Alice James Award.

Alice James Books is committed to collaborating with literary artists of excellence whose voices have been historically marginalized by producing, promoting, and distributing their work, which often engages the public on important social issues. The Alice James Award builds on Alice James’s reputation for excellence through this annual contest for book manuscripts from both emerging and established poets.

zakia winning a blind submission contest (where no contact information can be listed on the manuscripts submitted) is nothing short of a coup–her forthcoming book, The Body Losing Its Borders, beat out thousands of other manuscripts to be published by one of the premiere independent publishers of poetry in the nation.

The Body Losing Its Borders won’t be available until January 2027, but you can congratulate zakia (and preorder) today!

Take a look at this picture and tell me what you see:

That’s (from left) Katie Machen, Francesca Hyatt, Rebecca Suzuki, Marine Cornuet, Ammiel Alcalay, Radhika Singh, David Iaconangelo, Leo Grossman, Briallen Hopper, who all met up at Ammiel Alcalay and Mosab Abu Toha’s sold-out Poetry Project reading at St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, February 12, 2025.

For other programs, having this many alums in a room is a rarity, happening only through universities trying to fleece donations or when someone is trying to start up a new reading series and needs to fill space in their lineup. That’s not us.

So much of what you achieve during an MFA is based on community, whether that’s the notes you get in workshop or the network you lean on when you’re looking for a job or to publish something. Why would you want that to stop after you graduate? What’s great about the Queens College MFA Program is that you become part of it for life. QC folks seek each other out, driven by that same hunger to build and grow as writers. We will show up at your reading! We’ll even buy the book!

Who wouldn’t want to be a part of that?

Take a look at some of our other alumni and see if you’d maybe what to become part of the QC MFA Program:

Our Alumni

Remember, our application deadline is March 15!

The Markaz Review has just published an excerpt of a forthcoming novel from MFA alum Radhika Singh in their latest issue. “The Spirit of Mutiny” is part of Singh’s speculative fiction novel which “imagines a post-imperialist future enabled by the success of ongoing liberation movements, with Gaza holding the frontline of resistance to Empire today.”

“The Spirit of Mutiny”—speculative fiction

The Markaz Review is an online and print review of art, music, film, literature, ideas, cities and culture writ large, with an emphasis on freedom of expression and a focus on the writers and artists from the center of the world. Organized as a nonprofit in France and the United States, TMR supports creative people of the greater Middle East, generally thought to include the Arab world, Iran, Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Africa. As a global community, TMR is a creative and literary destination that seeks to erase the boundaries between peoples and celebrate culture.

Congratulations, Ra!

There’s a reason you clicked on this link and read this. Lots of writers love a good walk, but have you ever thought about why? Our own program director, Jason Tougaw, suggests that “the mind and body in motion, with no practical destination in mind, sharpens attention and loosens imagination” in his latest piece for Psychology Today, “The Profound Benefits of Walking“.

By collecting these thoughts from famous writers, Dr. Tougaw is setting the stage for his own special workshop this coming semester on writing, walking, and cognition, which is exactly the kind of unique class we offer here at the QC MFA Program.

Lace up your walking shoes and go read this piece:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-elusive-brain/202501/writers-on-walking?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR0-6n0DtKyyhBzskcvQbecSc5_29tgiW650BROnBbBkQA4SY55qAU7hSko_aem_S6Tu40rboR6FmGqY3iGHpQ

Nicole Cooley published seventh poetry collection, Mother Water Ash, to rave reviews this fall, including this round-up in Literary Hub and this latest in Rhino. She’s been doing readings all over the country. Don’t miss her if she reads near you.

Richard Prins (2024) was chosen–and is now published!–in this year’s edition of The Best American Essays.

Richard studied Swahili translation and creative nonfiction in the program, and wrote the award-winning essay, “Because: An Etiology” for a class. Huge congratulations to Richard!

Our own program director, Jason Tougaw, has written a piece for Psychology Today about Asher Young’s immersive art installation Living Memory, which allows people to visit with holograms made from photographs they submit of departed loved ones.

The result is another step in the evolution of how media and technology can not just assist us as we grieve, but actually shape how we remember those we’ve lost. Tougaw describes his encounter with one of these holograms and explores how this experience can be both painful and a joy in his piece.

If you’ve lost someone, maybe you should read it too:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-elusive-brain/202411/twenty-first-century-grief