Memphis Poet Emily Skaja Awarded FY27 Literary Fellowship

The Tennessee Arts Commission has awarded Emily Skaja its fiscal year 2027 Individual Artist Fellowship in Poetry.

An instructor in the MFA program at the University of Memphis, Skaja won the Walt Whitman Award from the Academy of American Poets for her collection, Brute. Her forthcoming book, Black Lake, explores clinical depression, grief, and recurring pregnancy loss through a blend of despair and surreal humor, inspired by the idea that sometimes people laugh to keep from crying. One central poem series portrays the narrator transforming into various [liminal/diminished?] states — being stuck in time, becoming a ghost, becoming estranged from herself — as a way of expressing impatience with her own stalled grief. Another major series, “Black Lake,” uses the image of a bottomless, devouring lake to represent depression. These poems depict the fear of sinking into that darkness, while other poems introduce absurd or satirical elements, like a billionaire privatizing the weather.

The fellowship judge observed, “This is a gorgeous sample. Their attentiveness to place, distinctiveness of voice, their exquisite figuration, and their careful formal craft make them singular. While the titular ‘Black Lake’ series is a particular standout, the sample as a whole explores epistemologies of grief, melancholy, and longing with emotional and rhetorical complexity.”

Ms. Skaja plans to use her award to spend more time focusing on her writing and traveling to do research for her next book.