Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, and Juan Felipe Herrera will each receive lifetime achievement awards during a special event Feb. 19.

By Jessica Weber
FROM: UC Riverside News

Three U.S. poet laureates will close out this year’s Writers Week, California’s longest-running free literary festival, held by UC Riverside for the 44th year. Rita Dove, Joy Harjo, and Juan Felipe Herrera will each be honored with the annual Los Angeles Review of Books (LARB) – UCR Department of Creative Writing Lifetime Achievement Award during a special closing event at 6:30 p.m. on Feb. 19.

“The legacy of these three laureates is incredible,” said Allison Hedge Coke, director of Writers Week, noting each poet has published award-winning books of poetry for over 40 years. “This luminary trifecta served as the first African American, the first Latinx, and first tribally enrolled citizen of a Native nation appointed as U.S. poet laureates, the highest honor for a poet in the United States. Their work for greater good, in providing light to ease troubles, in their generous and great mentorship outreach, and gracious literary presence in shaping the way we view ideals in democracy are represented in their careers and in their compendiums. It is a phenomenal opportunity for us to acknowledge their gifts to our canon and to the world.”

Previous recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award include Walter Mosley, Margaret Atwood, Maxine Hong Kingston, Ngugi wa Thiong’o, and John Rechy. This year’s event marks the first time there have been three honorees receiving the award.

The award ceremony, as well as all sessions during Writers Week, is free and open to the public and will be presented virtually through the video platform Crowdcast, allowing guests to attend from the comfort and safety of home. The evening will include luminary tributes, presentation of the awards, readings by the poet laureates, and a virtual live Q&A, giving attendees the opportunity to interact with the honorees.

“Thank you, everyone, for attending and sharing links to our first virtual festival,” Hedge Coke said. “We hope everyone stays safe and in touch. Writers Week is for you and is a big part of our outreach from the Department of Creative Writing’s goal to make living writers accessible to everyone and to bring the best of contemporary literature to our stage. Thank you to our generous sponsors, to everyone who staffed and collaborated with us, and to the writers and readers who make this possible. We hope everyone will consider purchasing books by this year’s authors and follow their next offerings, as well.” Click Here For More Info