Dietz Poetry Essay Prize

Elizabeth Dietz (1964-2005) was a poet and professor of Renaissance Literature at Rice University. A graduate of both the Writers Workshop and the University of Iowa’s doctoral program in English, Elizabeth specialized in the lyric poetry of sixteenth and seventeenth-century England and was equally interested in poetic theory and practice. She was also a gifted teacher of poetry. The Dietz Essay Prize is awarded annually, on alternating years, for the best essay on poetry written by an undergraduate and a graduate student. In honor of Elizabeth’s broad and eclectic interests, essays on all kinds of poetry — epic, lyric, narrative, dramatic, and experimental — as well as on poetics are welcome. This prize is offered to an undergraduate major in the spring of even-numbered years.