V. Penelope Pelizzon
Encyclopedia
Life
She graduated from University of Massachusetts AmherstUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst
The University of Massachusetts Amherst is a public research and land-grant university in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States and the flagship of the University of Massachusetts system...
, summa cum laude, University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, and University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
in 1998.
She has taught at University of California, Irvine
University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
, Washington and Jefferson College, and University of Connecticut
University of Connecticut
The admission rate to the University of Connecticut is about 50% and has been steadily decreasing, with about 28,000 prospective students applying for admission to the freshman class in recent years. Approximately 40,000 prospective students tour the main campus in Storrs annually...
.
Her work has appeared in Poetry, The Hudson Review, 32 Poems, 5 Fingers Review, The Kenyon Review, Field, the New England Review, Missouri Review, ZYZZYVA, Worchester Review, and Fourth Genre.
She is married to Anthony Deaton, a Political Officer at the U.S. Embassy in Damascus, Syria.
Awards
- 2001 Norma Farber First Book AwardNorma Farber First Book AwardThe Norma Farber First Book Award is given by the Poetry Society of America "for a first book of original poetry written by an American and published in either a hard or soft cover in a standard edition during the calendar year"....
, for Nostos, by Poetry Society of AmericaPoetry Society of AmericaThe Poetry Society of America is a literary organization founded in 1910 by poets, editors, and artists including Witter Bynner. It is the oldest poetry organization in the United States. Past members of the have included such renowned writers as Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Edna St. Vincent...
’s - Hollis Summers Prize
- 1997 “Discovery”/ The Nation Award
- The Kenneth Rexroth Translation Award (for Umberto Saba’s poems from Italian)
- 2003 Campbell Corner Poetry Prize
- Lannan Writing Residency FellowshipLannan Literary AwardsThe Lannan Literary Awards are a series of awards and literary fellowships given out in various fields by the Lannan Foundation. Established in 1989, the awards are meant "to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional quality", according to the foundation...
Reviews
Penelope Pelizzon's first book of poems--winner of the Hollis Summers Poetry Prize--sticks closely to the narrative of nostalgia and return she sets up in the first of four sections of the collection. The poems are intentionally domesticated in the way people become in pictures, and she uses photographic memory to resonant effect. The book is dedicated to her family and to the memory of her father, which seems appropriate, as the first two sections deal with family history and photographs, following an emigrating family through a lens made murky by the past.