DANIELSON, CT — Quinebaug Valley Community College will hold its 16th Annual Julius Sokenu Poetry Prize Celebration beginning at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday April 27th in the Robert E. Miller Auditorium at 742 Upper Maple Street, Danielson, CT, 06239. The event will feature a reading by award-winning student poets and honored guest Edgar Kunz.

Edgar Kunz, a Connecticut native and former community college student, is the author of Tap Out (Mariner, 2019) and Fixer (Ecco, 2023). He has been a National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, a MacDowell Fellow, and a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. His poems have appeared in many publications, including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Poetry, and Oxford American. He lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College.

The Julius Sokenu Poetry Awards is a lively annual event honoring the best student poetry in English and Spanish at Quinebaug Valley Community College and at the Quinebaug Middle College. The event is sponsored by the QVCC Foundation, Cultural Programming Committee, Department of English, Department of Spanish, EASTCONN’s Quinebaug Middle College, and the QVCC Student Government Association, as well as generous Julius Sokenu Poetry Prize donors. The event is free and open to the public. Sandwiches, hors d’oeuvres, sweets, and cool beverages will be provided.

For more information contact Professor of English Jon Andersen at jandersen@qvcc.edu

or Interim Academic Division Director Elkin Espitia-Loaiza, at eespitia-loaiza@qvcc.commnet.edu.

Photo Credit: Ariana Mygatt