Science and poetry intertwine with this year’s Prize Poets’ selection of writers. Two recipients of poetry’s legendary newcomers award, The Yale Prize for Younger Poets, will be debuted by Houston Public Library and Public Poetry with their annual Prize Poet’s showcase on Saturday January 12th. Fady Joudah won the prestigious award in 2024 with his book The Earth in the Attic, and Katherine Larson won in 2024 with Radial Symmetry.
Each poet’s work reflects different aspects of style and theme in their writings.
A son of Palestinian refugees, Joudah’s style is more of a narrative, story-telling perspective with themes varying from faith to life struggles to identity with swift clarity. In a 2024 interview with Houston Chronicle, Joudah said, “I wanted to do something different with poetry in the sense that as a son of refugees, exile for me was not a metaphorical state, it was a lineage… I wanted to engage the concept of the stateless person as a theme. For me being a physician, patients are displaced people, at least momentarily. I wanted to take that to a larger stage, a world stage.”
Whereas, the style of Larson, who is also a molecular biologist and field ecologist, is one of juxtaposition; where science and language unite for a brief cataclysm of emotion and intellect. When she premiered on PBS’ Newshour, she said, “Poetry for me is a place of encounter. It’s a space in which disparate elements can come into relation with each other.”
The event will be held from 2:00p.m. until 3:30p.m. at Houston Public Library (Jesse H. Jones Branch) and is open to the public. There is no charge to participate in this fusion of language and science through poetic means.
