Dr. Tim O’Keefe of Athens is the winner of the 2017 Juniper Prize for Poetry for his upcoming new book, “You Are the Phenomenology.”
O’Keefe is an assistant professor of English at Piedmont College, where he teaches literature and directs the creative writing program. He said the new book, which is scheduled for release in February 2018, is a collection of poems and creative non-fiction.
The Juniper Prize is one of four poetry and fiction prizes presented annually by the University of Massachusetts Press and the University of Massachusetts Amherst MFA Program. O’Keefe’s manuscript was selected for publication from a pool of more than 500 submissions. When it was launched in 1975, the Juniper Prize was one of the first university-press awards to focus on contemporary poetry, and its previous winners include Lucille Clifton, Lynda Hull, Laura Kasischke, and Mark Halliday.”
“I am thrilled—and relieved—that the book is going to be out there,” O’Keefe said. “When the editor first called, I didn’t answer. I thought it was a spam call. I called back, but you don’t want to get your hopes up. I thought maybe I was a finalist, so when she told me, I couldn’t say anything for a few seconds.”
Dr. Perry Rettig, Vice President for Academic Affairs at Piedmont, said “Dr. O’Keefe does a tremendous job of bringing his scholarship into the classroom and modeling for students exceptional writing practices. We are not surprised that the Juniper editors selected him for this honor.”
O’Keefe graduated from Middlebury College and earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Johns Hopkins University. He earned a PhD in English & Creative Writing from the University of Utah. He is the author of “The Goodbye Town,” winner of the 2010 FIELD Poetry Prize and published by Oberlin College Press. His poems and lyric essays have appeared in The American Poetry Review, The Best American Poetry, Boston Review, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, Seneca Review, VOLT, and elsewhere.
