The University of Arizona Press
June 13, 2024
The Academy of American Poets has announced that Las Horas Impossibles | The Impossible Hours, written by Octavio Quintanilla and co-translated by Quintanilla and Natalia Treviño, was selected by Norma Cantú as the winner of the 2024 Ambroggio Prize, which is given annually for a book-length poetry manuscript originally written in Spanish and with an English translation. The winners receive $1,000 and publication by the University of Arizona Press, a nationally recognized publisher of emerging and established voices in Latinx and Indigenous literature. Previous winners include Mara Pastor, with translators María José Giménez and Anna Rosenwong; Margarita Pintado Burgos, with translator Alejandra Quintana Arocho; and Elizabeth Torres.
Cantú commented on the collection: “If this were a meal the various courses would delight my senses. With alacrity and wit the poet pokes and jokes at life and the elements that make human existence a conundrum. The inclusion of computer generated design-poems adds to the impact of the volume. The translator more than ably renders the original Spanish poems into an equally moving English, often opting for the unexpected translation.”
Octavio Quintanilla
Octavio Quintanilla is the author of the poetry collections If I Go Missing (Slough Press, 2014) and The Book of Wounded Sparrows (Texas Review Press, 2024). He is the founder and director of the literature and arts festival VersoFrontera; publisher of Alabrava Press; and former poet laureate of San Antonio, Texas. His visual poems Frontextos have been published and exhibited widely. He teaches literature and creative writing at Our Lady of the Lake University.
Born in Mexico, Natalia Treviño is the author of the poetry collection Lavando La Dirty Laundry (Mongrel Empire Press, 2014) and the chapbook VirginX (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Her awards include the Alfredo Cisneros del Moral Award, the Wendy Barker Creative Writing Award, the Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Prize, the Menada Literary Award from Macedonia, and the San Antonio Artist Foundation Literary Prize. She is a professor of English at Northwest Vista College.
The 2025 Ambroggio Prize will be judged by Giannina Braschi and will be open for submissions from June 15, 2024, to September 15, 2024.
We are thrilled to be publishing this award-winning collection. Congratulations, Octavio!
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About the Academy of American Poets
Founded in 1934, the Academy of American Poets is a leading champion of poets and poetry with supporters across the United States and beyond. The organization annually awards $1.3+ million to more than two hundred poets at various stages of their careers through its prize program, which includes the Poet Laureate Fellowships. The organization also produces Poets.org, the world’s largest publicly funded website for poets and poetry; established and organizes National Poetry Month each April; publishes the popular Poem-a-Day series and American Poets magazine; provides free resources to K–12 educators, including the award-winning weekly Teach This Poem series; hosts an annual series of poetry readings and special events; and coordinates a national Poetry Coalition that promotes the value poets bring to our culture. To learn more about the Academy of American Poets, including its staff, its Board of Directors, and its Board of Chancellors, visit: https://poets.org.
