Itiola Jones is a finalist of the 2020 Inverted Syntax Sublingua Prize for Poetry
American/Nigerian poet, Itiola Jones is one of the six finalists of the 2020 Inverted Syntax Sublingua Prize for Poetry, for her poem, “Self-Portrait As Tiona”.
The winner as well as the finalists of the prize was announced on Saturday, the 15th of August, 2020 with Itiola Jones as the only African finalist.
The Inverted Syntax Sublingua Prize for Poetry awards a cash prize of $1,000 and publication in their print issue for “exceptionally crafted, previously unpublished work by a writer who has not yet published a full-length manuscript nor a chapbook exceeding 44 pages.”
The selection of the winner and finalists was done by a judging panel led by award-winning poet, Khadijah Queen.
Other finalists of the prize include:
Maya Salameh for “Catalog of algorithmic errors”
Marietta Brill for “Dear Vector, Where are you now”
Arnaav Bhavanani for “Temple Variation in 4th Harmonic”
Emily Marie Passos Duffy for “Fog”
Meg E. Griffitts for “When the Doctor Doesn’t Believe Your Pain: A Meditation”
While the winner of the prize is Jo Stewart for her poem, “The Sky was Red: A Poem, Choreography, and Performance”
I. S. Jones is a queer American / Nigerian poet and music journalist. She is a Graduate Fellow with The Watering Hole and holds fellowships from Callaloo, BOAAT Writer’s Retreat, and Brooklyn Poets. I.S. hosts a month-long workshop every April, called The Singing Bullet.
She is a Book Editor with Indolent Books, Editor at 20.35 Africa: An Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, freelances for Complex, Earmilk, NBC News Think, and elsewhere. Her works have appeared or are forthcoming in Guernica, Washington Square Review, The Rumpus, Hesperios, The Offing, The Shade Journal, Nat.Brut, Puerto Del Sol, and elsewhere. She is the co-editor of the Young African Poets Anthology and is currently guest-editing for Lolwe.
Her work was chosen by the 2020 Madison, WI Poet Laureate as the winner of the Bus Lines Poetry Contest. She is an MFA candidate in Poetry at UW-Madison as well as the inaugural 2019-2020 Kemper K. Knapp University Fellowship recipient. She splits her time between Southern California and New York.
Congrats Itiola Jones!
