Local poet Jose Padua awarded 2019 Miller Williams Poetry Prize

Jose Padua

Front Royal resident Jose Padua, a well-known poet, has been awarded the prestigious 2019 Miller Williams Poetry Prize for his collection A Short History of Monsters. Padua was selected by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. The University of Arkansas Press will publish his book, and Padua will receive a $5,000 cash prize in addition to publication.

The prize and series are named in honor of Miller Williams, an acclaimed poet, the founding director of the University of Arkansas Press, and a long-time professor in the U of A creative writing program. In 1988 the press published Billy Collins’ debut collection, The Apple that Astonished Paris, under Williams’ directorship.

Padua’s poems appear regularly in the online journal Vox Populi. He is a veteran of the spoken word and downtown New York literary scene and has spent the last 10 years living in Front Royal.

Padua’s book will be launched at the Association of Writers and Writer’s Programs meeting in Portland, Oregon, in March 2019.

Guiding his editorial decision, Collins said that beneath the surface of Padua’s “lively, soulful poems” there was “a smart, sympathetic mind at work.”

The University of Arkansas Press advances the mission of the University of Arkansas by publishing peer-reviewed scholarship and literature of enduring value. The Press publishes books by authors of diverse backgrounds writing for specialty as well as general audiences in Arkansas and throughout the world.

Each year, the University of Arkansas Press accepts submissions for the Miller Williams Poetry Series and from the books selected awards the $5,000 Miller Williams Poetry Prize in the following summer. For almost a quarter century the press has made this series the cornerstone of its work as a publisher of some of the country’s best new poetry.