Geffrey Davis Awarded Prestigious Literary Fellowship

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FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – the National Endowment for the Arts announced on Feb. 13 that Geffrey Davis, a professor of poetry in the Program for Creative Writing and Translation at the University of Arkansas is one of 35 poets who will receive a FY 2019 Creative Writing Fellowship of $25,000.

Davis was selected from nearly 1,700 eligible applicants.

“Geffrey has continually set himself apart as one of the nation’s best writers of contemporary poetry,” said Davis McCombs, director of the Program in Creative Writing and Translation. “We are delighted that he has been recognized by the NEA for his immense talent and extraordinary promise.”  

Through its Creative Writing Fellowships, the Arts Endowment gives writers the time and space needed to create. Fellows are selected through a highly-competitive, anonymous process and are judged solely on the artistic excellence of the work sample provided.

Davis joined the Program in Creative Writing and Translation in 2014.

“Geffrey is winning national awards at a dizzying rate, yet he remains firmly committed to the everyday needs of our students,” said Dorothy Stephens, chair of the Department of English. “He is an ideal colleague who works for the good of the entire department.

Davis is the author of Night Angler (BOA Editions, 2019), winner of the James Laughlin Award from the Academy of American Poets, and Revising the Storm (BOA Editions, 2014), winner of the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. Other honors include the Anne Halley Poetry Prize, the Dogwood Prize in Poetry the Wabash Prize for Poetry and the Leonard Steinberg Memorial Prize from the Academy of American Poets. His poems have appeared in journals nationwide.

About the University of Arkansas: The University of Arkansas provides an internationally competitive education for undergraduate and graduate students in more than 200 academic programs. The university contributes new knowledge, economic development, basic and applied research, and creative activity while also providing service to academic and professional disciplines. The Carnegie Foundation classifies the University of Arkansas among only 2.7 percent of universities in America that have the highest level of research activity. U.S. News & World Report ranks the University of Arkansas among its top American public research universities. Founded in 1871, the University of Arkansas comprises 10 colleges and schools and maintains a low student-to-faculty ratio that promotes personal attention and close mentoring.