Day Eight is pleased to announce that poet Juliana Schifferes has been awarded the 2023 Luce Prize. The Luce Prize recognizes an exceptional poet in their first four years of professional publication and is selected by the chair of the editorial board of Day Eight’s literary magazine. Schifferes wrote, “I am profoundly grateful for the honor.”
The annual Luce Prize was established by the Day Eight board of directors in January 2023 to honor the organization’s outgoing board chair, Gregory Luce, a longtime champion of new poets. Gregory Luce served as board chair of Day Eight from 2017 to 2022 and as lead poetry editor for the entity’s literary magazine in the same period. He continues to serve in the position of editorial board chair following the magazine’s 2021 editorial board expansion and reorganization.
Considering Schifferes’ work the selector reflected, “Juliana’s poems use language inventively and display a wit rare even in more experienced poets. Her work treats familiar topics such as drinking coffee or a chance encounter at a grocery store and invests them with humor and a sense of surprise.”
Juliana Schifferes works in public and community outreach. As a creative writer she is inspired by the work of Cesar Vallejo, Robert Pinsky, James Merrill and Delmore Schwartz. Her poems published in Day Eight’s literary magazine were her second professional literary publication.
Schifferes has received a $500 cash award and her winning poems will be published in a forthcoming print annual alongside three honorable mentions for the award: Cody Bock, Lex Page, and Brandon C. Spalletta.