N. Scott Momaday is the 2021 recipient of the Frost Medal for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry, given by the Poetry Society of America and named for Robert Frost.
The Society's board of governors called Momaday "a critically acclaimed poet, novelist, and essayist. He spent his early years in the Southwest where his parents taught on Navajo, Apache, and Jemez Pueblo reservations. In his childhood, in his words, his 'mother [who was well versed in English literature] taught me how to discover the wealth within books' and his father, 'who was Native American of the Kiowa tribe and whose first language was unwritten, told me stories from the Kiowa oral tradition.' Such early influences guided his life, whether formal education or aesthetic choices. Indeed, his poems, often meditations on mortality, love, and loss, as well as reflections on the American landscape, evoke the essence of human experience. He is also a much beloved teacher who built his reputation specializing in Native American oral traditions. Current U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo writes of his 2020 collection The Death of Sitting Bear: New and Selected Poems: 'When you read these poems, you will learn to hear deeply the sound a soul makes as it sings about the mystery of dreaming and becoming.' "
Momaday is the author of many collections of poetry: besides The Death of Sitting Bear, they include In the Bear's House (1999), In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961-1991 (1992), and The Gourd Dancer (1976). His first novel, House Made of Dawn, won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1969. He is author of several other novels and prose collections, including Earth Keeper: Reflections on the American Land (2020).
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The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals has released longlists for the 2021 Carnegie Medal (author of a book for children & young people) and Kate Greenaway Medal (illustrator). CILIP noted that the awards "are unique in being judged by children's librarians, with the Shadowers' Choice Award voted for by children and young people.
Shortlists will be announced March 18 and winners named June 16. Covid-19 guidelines permitting, a socially distanced special daytime event will be held at the British Library and live-streamed online.
Winners each receive £500 (about $690) worth of books to donate to their local library, a specially commissioned golden medal and a £5,000 (about $6,920) Colin Mears Award cash prize. Now in its third year, the Shadowers' Choice Award will be announced alongside the two medal winners. You can find the complete CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway longlists here.