Jake Skeets, UNM alumnus and author of Eyes Bottle Dark with a Mouthful of Flowers, is one of ten emerging writers selected to receive the generous Whiting Award from the Whiting Foundation, which remains one of the most esteemed and largest monetary gifts to emerging writers based on the criteria of early-career achievement and the promise of superior literary work to come. Skeets is described as “a fierce observer of the world [who] assembles lives and landscape with such measured precision that the poems themselves begin to breathe, counting among his notable gifts . . . a lush and surprising imagery, formal dexterity, and an imagination that goes far beyond the borders of the self to extend empathy to everything it touches.” Skeets is Diné from Vanderwagen, New Mexico and Black Streak Wood, born for Water’s Edge. He holds an MFA in poetry from the Institute of American Indian Arts, is a winner of the 2018 Discovery/Boston Review Poetry Contest and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize. Skeets edits an online publication, Cloudthroat, and organizes a poetry salon and reading series called Pollentongue, based in the Southwest. He is a member of Saad Bee Hózhǫ́: A Diné Writers’ Collective and currently teaches at Diné College in Tsaile, Arizona.
Alumnus Wins Generous Award for Emerging Writers
