Writing fellow at Pitt wins prestigious Whiting Award
Rickey Laurentiis, a Pittsburgh-based poet, is among 10 recipients to receive a $50,000 Whiting Award, which honors the work of emerging writers. Since 1985, the awards have been given to writers in the categories of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and drama.
Mr. Laurentiis is the inaugural fellow in Creative Writing at the Center for African American Poetry and Poetics at the University of Pittsburgh in Oakland. Thecenter was founded in 2016.
Mr. Laurentiis grew up in New Orleans. His debut book, “Boy With Thorn,” won the Cave Canem Poetry Prize in 2014 and the Levis Reading Prize in 2016. The book was published by University of Pittsburgh Press.
Whiting Prize recipients are selected by a panel of writers, scholars and editors. The committee is chosen by the Mrs. Giles Whiting Foundation of Brooklyn, N.Y. Writers cannot apply for the prize, and the foundation does not accept unsolicited nominations.
The selection committee described Mr. Laurentiis’ work this way: “From sinuous lyricism to urgent declamation, his work traces the complex relationships among power, freedom and violence. You find yourself moving your lips as you read these poems; their sounds make beautiful and awful shapes.”
Mr. Laurentiis also has received fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation. In 2016, he traveled to Jerusalem to read at the Palestine Festival of Literature.