Writing alum Dolapo Demuren '17 was selected as a winner of the 2025 Poetry Society of America Chapbook Fellowship, a national award from America's oldest poetry organization which includes publication of his manuscript, American Love Sonnets.
Launched in 2003 with the aim to share new voices with new audiences, the PSA's Chapbook Program gives several poets each year—who have not yet published a full-length collection—the opportunity to publish their work in a beautifully designed chapbook and to win a cash prize of $1,000. Alums of the fellowship include William Brewer, Emily Lee Luan, Dawn Lundy Martin, and fellow Writing alums Camille Rankine '09 and Max Ritvo '16.
Demuren's manuscript was selected by fellow alum and Adjunct Associate Professor of Writing, Monica Ferrell '02, author of three previous books and finalist for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Prize and the Believer Book Award in Poetry.
At the heart of Demuren's work is a question: "How does anyone write a cross-generational love poem that stands as both a product of and witness to its time?" His answer: "I found that the sonnet form gave me the opportunity to compress this question into 14 line poems (or 'little songs') that were interconnected and inherently engaged in conversation with other sonneteers across time."
"I was thrilled to hear the news that the Poetry Society of America had accepted the collection to be a part of its Chapbook Fellowship series," Demuren said. "I remember being a student and carrying those chapbooks around Manhattan, into Queens, through Brooklyn and back again. I extend thanks to my teachers and classmates at Columbia for being readers of my work during those years."
You can read a poem, "Every Room is a Sonnet," from the winning manuscript on the PSA website.
Dolapo Demuren is a Nigerian-American writer and educator from the Washington DC metropolitan area. He received his BA in Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University, MFA from Columbia University and Ed.D from the University of Southern California. He has received support from the Cave Canem Foundation, The Academy for Teachers, and the Bread Loaf Writers' Conference. A Pushcart Prize nominee, his work is featured or forthcoming in the Adroit Journal, Prairie Schooner, Prelude Magazine, On the Seawall, and elsewhere. He teaches creative writing at the University of Maryland College Park, where he is currently the Associate Director of the Jiménez-Porter Writers' House.
