McDaniel-Douglas claims Poetry London Prize

Hilary McDaniel-Douglas, who left Las Cruces in 2022 to join the Queen’s University Belfast master of arts program in poetry, has won a major international award and substantial cash prize for a poem she wrote titled, “A Hoosier Sonnet Definition.”

McDaniel-Douglas, who returned to New Mexico last May, will travel to London in November to accept the award and £5,000 (the equivalent of about $6,500). She won the Poetry London Prize for one of the sonnets included in her dissertation.

“The most coveted aspect of the award is the poet who judged my poem,” McDaniel-Douglas said. “Hannah Sullivan, the judge, is a greatly respected and followed poet who teaches at New College, Oxford, England and whose collection, ‘Three Poems,’ won the T. S. Eliot Prize for Poetry awarded by the T.S. Eliot Foundation in 2018.

“I so appreciated Hannah’s review and critique of my poem,” McDaniel-Douglas said.

Sullivan’s review included her admiration for McDaniel-Douglas’ “sound effects, the half and internal rhymes (state road/depot) and the brilliant syncopation of some of the rhythms (nowhere clearer than in the last line) from the start. Do you know that bit in Eliot where he talks about the particularity of memory?” Sullivan wrote.

“Hannah Sullivan mentioned that aspect of Eliot as well as Robert Lowell’s ‘Notebooks,’ and it was a transformative moment both as insight to my own work and encouragement to my writing future. It gave me hope.” McDaniel-Douglas said.

“What I think is important is that the Poetry London Prize has been an accolade that has regularly pointed towards poets who are ready to step up and be a significant part of the conversation in poetry,” Poetry London editor Niall Campbell said. “Previous winners include Liz Berry (winner of the Forward Prize for Best First Collection), Richard Scott (soon after published by Faber & Faber) and Romalyn Ante (again, soon after published by Chatto and Windus). Hilary joins a prestigious group of wonderfully talented poets.

“This year also saw the most ever entries into the competition. It is hard to think of a tougher year to have won it. Lastly, there is the fact that Hilary was chosen by such a prominent poet in Hannah Sullivan, a winner and now judge of the T.S. Eliot Prize for poetry. We’re delighted to see Hilary championed and will be keeping our fingers crossed to see what happens next for her and her work.”

McDaniel-Douglas, who brought Project in Motion aerial dance studio to Las Cruces from Indianapolis in 2001, said the poem itself won’t be released until the prize is awarded.

Her work has also been awarded prizes by the Kent and Sussex Poetry Society and others. The “Hoosier Sonnet Definition” will be available in broadsheet and pamphlet form through links on her website.

She joined the Belfast MA program after learning about the program from New Mexico State University CMI interim department head Connie Voisine, who is also a poet.

“I reinvented myself as a writer, in part by taking an NMSU poetry course, and Connie and her husband, Rus Bradburd, thought the Belfast program might be a good fit,” McDaniel-Douglas said. “Affiliated with the Seamus Heaney Centre, it promised an international scholarship and a post-pandemic stipend as well as a new take on an artistic career which had spanned decades.”

"Hilary has long been a brilliant member of the New Mexico and Las Cruces' arts communities,” Voisine said. “Her aerial shows often included scripts of her composition which I found magical and poetic. I was so glad when she expressed interest in taking a poetry class at NMSU and placed her in a graduate poetry class. As I have often found with artists who excelled in their chosen field, Hilary transitioned into poetry in all kinds of wonderful ways, as evidenced by this prize."

For more information, visit HilaryMcdaniel-Douglas.com.