Morgan Parker Wins 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry

Morgan Parker takes home this year's National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry for her latest book, Magical Negro (Tin House). At the Los Angeles Times, Dorany Pineda and Boris Kachka remind readers:

The awards also were given out with no official ceremony due to an even more urgent concern. Typically the NBCCs are awarded during a New York City event, but on Monday, as fears over the novel coronavirus spawned a wide array of event cancellations, the nonprofit announced it was canceling its finalists reading and awards ceremony, both scheduled for this week. The annual gala reception was rescheduled for September.

Now more about Parker's win:

Also a YA novelist and the author of a forthcoming book of nonfiction, the Los Angeles-based Parker has won a Pushcart Prize and plenty of raves for past collections of verse, much of which deals with the African American experience. “Morgan Parker’s effortless versatility with language in ‘Magical Negro’ is a wondrous and immersive experience,” judge Hope Wabuke writes. “Here is a poet who reminds us of what language can be—innovative and truthful in its rhythmic constructs of meaning.”

Congratulations to Parker and all the other winners this year. Read on at the LA Times.