F. Douglas Brown, who earned a Master of Arts in Creative Writing in 2001, was recently awarded the Cave Canem Poetry Prize for his forthcoming collection Zero to Three.
“These poems lead us from the birth cry in a hospital delivery room, to dusk and revelry in Spain, to modern-day Florida and history-laden Mississippi where Trayvon Martin and Emmitt Till were slain,” judge Tracy K. Smith says. “Even when what Brown has set out to do is grieve loss, his lines move with a buoyant, marrow-deep music, percussive and rich. They move like ‘a train, bound to a destination’ and they arrive with ‘the crackle lightning makes when it hits.’”
Zero to Three will be published by University of Georgia Press this fall. Brown is an English teacher at Loyola High School of Los Angeles, an all-boys Jesuit school. He has earned fellowships from the Cave Canem Foundation and Kundiman.
Established in 1999, the Cave Canem Poetry Prize is dedicated to the discovery of exceptional first-book manuscripts by African American poets. The prize is presented by the Cave Canem Foundation, based in Brooklyn, New York, and committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.