The Flemish Poet Annemarie Estor Wins the 2024 Frederick Turner Prize for Poetry

 Mundus Artium Press announces that the selection committee has unanimously selected the Flemish Poet Annemarie Estor as the 2024 Frederick Turner Prize for Poetry.

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At a time when poetry is shrinking in its range, in its form, and its ambition, Annemarie Estor stands out. Wildly inventive, her huge vocabulary spans every genre and field of discourse, her gentle irony shines a light into every civilizational secret, and her passionate love of life, even in our doubtful times, makes us feel that we are not at the end of things but at the beginning. Long poems like No Man’s Land Night and The Armpits of the Beast explore the mysterious underworld landscapes of our current civilization and the transformative realm of sexual desire, crossing boundaries that are cultural, moral, philosophical and political, and never entirely “correct.”

Estor is that rare phenomenon, the learned poet who is also spontaneous, comic, and passionate. Her curiosity extends across cultures and across the sciences. Her beautiful and sardonic Flemish translates into a new tone in English, one that is both self-assured and hopelessly self-revealing. Winner of two of the most important Flemish prizes, the Herman de Coninck Prize and the Jan Campert Prize, among many other honors, her work deserves to be internationally known.

Mundus Artium’s Frederick Turner Prize for 2024 thus goes to Annemarie Estor. They hope that the prize will spur more translations of her work in other languages.

The Frederick Turner Prize committee does not confine itself in its search for excellence to free verse poetry, but seeks to recognize the many shaped, sung, and crafted forms of poetry that have arisen independently in human cultures all over the world. Its chief criterion is beauty, and it reflects its namesake’s interest in a philosophy of esthetics that includes the evolution of the cosmos. The prize includes a personalized medal, a diploma, and an award of $1,000.