A Brief History

The first iteration of the Prize was administered by the Latinx Writers Caucus and resulted from a desire to send an emerging Latinx poet to Madrid, Spain to participate in the Unamuno Author Series Festival in May of 2019. This historic event was the first primarily Anglophone poetry festival ever to be hosted in the Spanish capital. 

Poets Ruben Quesada and Spencer Reece played instrumental roles in this pilot effort. Intended to highlight a single poem, the Prize was judged by Quesada, who selected “Cognate,” by Fresno-based poet Steven Sanchez, as the winner. The poem was published in English and Spanish on the back page of American Poetry Review. Sanchez’s award was celebrated within the Festival at a special bilingual event hosted at the Residencia de Estudiantes, where Federico García Lorca found friendship and inspiration throughout his multifaceted career. Laura García-Lorca de los Ríos, President of the Fundación Federico García Lorca and niece of the poet, dedicated a personal translation and reading to Steven that evening. 

In addition to participating in the Festival in Madrid, Sanchez read at the inauguration of the Diván series at the Centro Federico García Lorca in Granada, and was awarded a two-week residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation in Italy. Reece, the founder of the Unamuno Author Series in Madrid, from which the Festival emerged, worked in close collaboration with Desperate Literature bookstore and a dedicated team of organizers to put on the Festival, including Elizabeth Moe. The Prize relied on various forms of philanthropy and the foundational gift was made by poet Gabrielle Calvocoressi.