State of the Arts Blog

The Pulitzer Prize for poetry’s Minnesota connection

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Courtesy Graywolf Press

When the 2014 Pulitzers were announced on Monday, we took note that University of Minnesota alum Kevin Siers, of The Charlotte Observer, won the editorial cartooning award. But there's another connection to Minnesota among the recipients. The prize-winning poetry collection "3 Sections" by Vijay Seshadri was published by Minneapolis-based Graywolf Press.

As we noted previously, Graywolf also published Tracy K. Smith’s Pulitzer Prize-winning collection of poetry, "Life on Mars," in 2012. That was the same year that Minnesota Opera's production of "Silent Night," written composer Kevin Puts, won the Pulitzer Prize for music.

The Pulitzer committee this year called Seshadro's work, "a compelling collection of poems that examine human consciousness, from birth to dementia, in a voice that is by turns witty and grave, compassionate and remorseless."