Xavier Cavazos, Iowa State English instructor and recent grad of ISU’s MFA program in Creative Writing and Environment, received a Poetry Society of America National Chapbook Fellowship Award. Poet Thomas Sayers Ellis selected Cavazos’ manuscript, "Barbarian at the Gate," as part of the Poetry Society of America’s New American Poets Chapbook Series. The chapbook launches with readings in April at the City University of New York Graduate Center Chapbook Festival and in Arizona at the Tucson Poetry Festival.
Cavazos describes "Barbarian at the Gate" as a "dynamic and emotional crusade through Latino/a racial identity, addiction and healing…a discursive back-alley trek and meditation on the state of the national political culture."
– Steve Jones