The University of Arizona Press
December 9, 2024
Poets & Writers announced today that Kimberly Blaeser, Angie Cruz, and Kiese Laymon will receive the 2025 Writers for Writers Award. Kimberly Blaeser is author of Ancient Light, a collection that uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time.
Blaeser is being recognized for nurturing and mentoring Indigenous poets through Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po), an organization she founded in 2020. She is the author of six poetry collections and served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2015–16. An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, Blaeser is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation, an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts, and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Award recipients are selected by a committee composed of current and past members of the Poets & Writers Board of Directors, chaired by literary agent Eric Simonoff. Of the 2025 honorees, Simonoff said: “These are extraordinary literary citizens who have each made tremendous contributions to the writing and publishing communities. They exemplify Poets & Writers’ core values of service and excellence, and we are delighted to recognize each one of them.”
The awards will be presented at Poets & Writers’ gala on March 24, 2025, in New York City.
Congratulations, Kimberly!
