American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney wins Dylan Thomas prize for ‘blistering’ debut poetry collection

A debut poetry collection with themes including race, addiction and womanhood has won this year’s Swansea University Dylan Thomas prize . American poet Sasha Debevec-McKenney took home the £20,000 prize – awarded to writers aged 39 or under in honour of the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, who died at that age – for her debut collection Joy Is My Middle Name. She was announced as the winner at a ceremony in Swansea, Thomas’s birthplace. The collection, chosen in a unanimous decision by judges, is “an exuberant, blistering collection full of life, humour and ideas. Debevec-McKenney is a ferociously gifted talent,” said Irenosen Okojie, chair of judges. “The book is remarkable in the way it galvanises the reader with a sense of intimacy that is authentic and a voice that feels like an antidote to our tricky times.” Sasha Debevec-McKenney was born in Connecticut, and now lives in Georgia, where she is a creative writing fellow at Emory University. Her poems have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books and the Yale Review. Joy Is My Middle Name charts the experience of life in one’s twenties and thirties, dealing with themes of race, sex, womanhood, addiction and consumerism. It is among the first poetry collections to be published by indie press Fitzcarraldo. …