As part of the 2016 Poetry Prize winner package, Ross Gay reads Alicia Wright’s winning poem “His Father’s Wake” on our Bluecast here. 

Here’s what judge Camille Rankine says about the winning poem: “What strikes me first about ‘His Father’s Wake’ is the unmoored energy of it. The phrases drift and crash into one another. They collide, they ricochet and spin away. These movements make a voice that is both wild and deliberate, steady and reckless in turn. The effect is captivating. I feel each shift and slow and quickening in my breath, in my heart’s beat.”

Listen to Alicia Wright read her poem here.