Day Eight is pleased to announce that poet Monica Perez-Nelson has been awarded the 2025 Luce Prize. The Luce Prize recognizes an exceptional poet in their first four years of professional publication and is selected by an editor of Day Eight’s literary magazine, the Mid-Atlantic Review.
Reflecting on her award, Perez-Nelson wrote, “I am blown away, honored, and humbled by this recognition. Thank you so much for the award, your time, and care in/of the poetry community.”
The annual Luce Prize was established by the Day Eight board of directors in 2023 to honor the organization’s outgoing board chair, the poet 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 Day Eight’s magazine in the same period.
Considering Perez-Nelson’s work, the selector reflected, “Monica Perez-Nelson has come to writing after what she has called ‘a long dormancy.’ Her beautiful poems, depicting the cross-cultural experiences of a Filipino-American poet, daughter, wife, and mother, demonstrate that life experience and the ability to transmute it into poetry are at least as valuable as academic experience.”
Monica Perez-Nelson is a Filipina-American poet who is working on her first collection. She is a a health policy lawyer who specializes in data and AI issues who lives in Northern Virginia with her husband, sons, and dog, Tulip.
Perez-Nelson received a cash award and her winning poems will be published in the forthcoming 2025 Mid-Atlantic Review print issue alongside three 2025 Luce Prize honorable mentions: Piérre Ramon Thomas, Reg Ledesma, and Dayne Blair.
You can find Perez-Nelson’s poems published online in the Mid-Atlantic Review here.