Princeton University Press is pleased to announce that Rowan Ricardo Phillips has been named editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets.
An acclaimed poet, essayist, translator, and sportswriter, Phillips is the author of six books—When Blackness Rhymes with Blackness, The Ground, Heaven, The Circuit, Living Weapon, and the forthcoming Silver—as well as the author of a book-length translation, from the Catalan, of Salvador Espriu’s Ariadne in the Grotesque Labyrinth. He is the recipient of the Whiting Award, the GLCA New Writers Award for Poetry, the PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Poetry, the Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award, and the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing, and has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the Griffin International Poetry Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Poetry. Phillips is Distinguished Professor of English at Stony Brook University, the president of the board of the New York Institute of the Humanities, and the poetry editor of the New Republic.
Phillips begins his editorship this spring and will oversee submissions to the series, which publishes two volumes annually. Submissions are invited between May 1 and May 31, with complete manuscripts, and an optional CV, sent to contemporarypoets@press.princeton.edu
“We are thrilled to begin a new collaboration with Rowan Ricardo Phillips as editor of the Contemporary Poets series,” said Anne Savarese, publisher for literary studies at Princeton University Press. “He brings deep experience as a poet and editor, and a commitment to finding and fostering original voices.”
Phillips succeeds Susan Stewart, an award-winning poet, translator, and critic, and former chancellor of the American Academy of Poets, who began her tenure as series editor in 2013.
“It is wonderful news that Rowan Ricardo Phillips will be taking up the editorship of the Princeton series,” Stewart said. “One of the most esteemed poets of his generation, Rowan has a humane and global vision of poetry. His own practice is exemplary in the ways he arranges and shapes individual poems to create each gorgeous volume as a whole. It will be exciting to follow the many new possibilities he will create for our series—a list known for its open gates and expansive sense of the art.”
Launched in 1975, the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets is committed to publishing the work of emerging and established poets alike, including works by Robert Pinsky, Ann Lauterbach, Jorie Graham, and others. Recent highlights include collections from Kathleen Graber—The River Twice and Eternal City, a finalist for the National Book Award and National Book Critic’s Circle Award; Anthony Carelli—The New World and Carnations, winner of the Whiting Award; and Tawanda Mulalu, whose Please make me pretty, I don’t want to die was named one of the best poetry books of 2022 by the New York Times, Boston Globe, and Washington Post. Forthcoming in 2023 are collections from Myronn Hardy, Aurora Americana, and Simon West, Prickly Moses.
As we welcome Phillips, the Press extends our deepest gratitude to Susan Stewart for her outstanding selections and her continuing support for the series and its authors.