Awards

Poetry Center BOOK AWARD | Frances Jaffer POETRY PRIZE | Academy of American Poets/Harold Taylor AWARD | Piri Thomas POETRY PRIZE | Browning Society AWARD

The Frances Jaffer Poetry Prize

The Frances Jaffer Poetry Prize was initiated in 1999 in memory of the late poet Frances Jaffer and is given annually to an undergraduate student in Creative Writing at SFSU on the basis of the student’s outstanding innovative work. Ms. Jaffer was prominent as a poet and editor in the Bay Area literary community, and was influential particularly on a younger generation of women writers. 

Author of two books of poetry, She Talks to Herself in the Language of An Educated Woman (Kelsey St. Press, 1981) and Alternate Endings (HOW(ever), 1985), Frances Jaffer was a founding coeditor of HOW(ever), the San Francisco-based literary journal devoted to exploring historical and contemporary innovative writing by women.  A volume of the poetry of Frances Jaffer is being prepared for publication, edited by Kathleen Fraser and Rob Halpern.

Photo: left to right, Beverly Dahlen, Susan Gevirtz, Rachel Blau DuPlessis, Frances Jaffer, Kathleen Fraser, editors of HOW(ever), c. 1983.



The Frances Jaffer Poetry Prize is funded through donations from friends of Frances Jaffer, and carries a cash prize. Candidates for the Jaffer Prize are nominated by SFSU faculty. No submissions accepted. Recipients include:

2012 : Marissa Carter

2011 : Benjamin Lopez

2010 : Alexander West

2009 : Nicole Escobar

2008 : Diana Ybarra

2007 : Leslie Patron

2006 : Christopher Girard

2005 : Jose Villaran

2004 : Unju Chi

2003 : Hongyu Min

2002 : John Sakkis

2001 : Mary DeNardo

2000 : Cynthia Sailers

Note: This prize is coordinated with financial aid awards and handled by the San Francisco State University Financial Aid Office.



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