Congratulations to Danielle Badra, MFA ’17, on winning the Etel Adnan Poetry Prize for her collection Like We Still Speak; the collection will be published in Fall 2021 by the University of Arkansas Press. The manuscript had already placed highly in several other competitions, as a finalist for the 2017 Berkshire Prize, the 2018 Kundiman Prize through Tupelo Press, the 2019 Autumn House Press Poetry Prize, and the 2020 CSU Poetry Center Lighthouse Series.
The Etel Adnan Poetry Prize awards publication to a first or second book of poetry by a writer of Arab heritage. The prize is supported by the King Fahd Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Arkansas, and it is named for Lebanese poet, essayist, and visual artist Etel Adnan.
In their comments about Like We Still Speak, series editors Hayan Charara and Fady Joudah wrote: “Danielle Badra’s poems strive to make sense of that most present yet often elusive condition—being human—and she does so with insight, grace, and originality. Her attention to grief is polyphonic. The voices of those lost to her become voices we embrace. We’re thrilled to help her bring this book into the world.”
Badra received her BA in Creative Writing from Kalamazoo College in 2008. While at Mason, she was the poetry editor of So To Speak and an intern for Split This Rock. Her poems have appeared in Outlook Springs, 45th Parallel, The California Journal of Poetics, Duende, The Greensboro Review, Bad Pony, Rabbit Catastrophe Press, Split This Rock, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, and elsewhere. Her chapbook Dialogue with the Dead was published by Finishing Line Press in 2015—a collection of contrapuntal poems in dialogue with her deceased sister.
In addition to teaching undergraduate composition, literature, and poetry at George Mason University, she has led writing workshops at The National Museum of Women in the Arts, Split This Rock Poetry Festival, OutWrite DC, and in high schools.
Find out more about Danielle's work at her website.
August 13, 2020
