The Lindquist & Vennum Prize for Poetry from Milkweed Editions offers, in its inaugural year, $10,000 and publication of a book of poems by a poet currently living in North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, or Wisconsin. This makes it one of the most significant regional poetry prizes in the country. The prize is funded by, perhaps surprisingly, a law firm. CEO & Publisher of Milkweed, Daniel Slager, took a few moments to speak with AWP about how and why this landmark prize was founded and what it hopes to become.

“It ended up as the product of a two-year-long conversation with Lindquist and Vennum, a law firm headquartered in Minneapolis,” said Slager. “I was first approached by an owning partner. A friend of his had asked him if our foundation would like to do something for poets that would also give something to culture.”

The two years of meetings and conversations resulted in five years of guaranteed funding and support of what became the Lindquist and Vennum Prize for Poetry: five winning collections of poetry, $10,000 to each winner, and no entry fees for five years with the hopes of building a significant new collective of talented, prize-winning poets.

“They wanted to do something that would put poets in the kind of light they’re not always in, that will reward their excellent work,” said Slager. “I think it’s a really big deal that a law firm wants to support poetry. I’m not often in this kind of setting talking to lawyers about poetry.”

The hope on the part of both parties involved (Milkweed and L&V) is that the cultural success of the prize, after five years, will be enough reason for Lindquist and Vennum to support it in perpetuity.

“I think it’s likely to be an annual prize that just goes on and on. We want poets to look at our list of winners ten years down the road and say, ‘that’s a group of poets I’d love to be a part of,’” said Slager.

Part of the decision to make the prize regional was the goal of setting it apart from all the other prizes. The upper-Midwest, including Iowa, considers Wisconsin, the Twin Cities, and Iowa City. As Slager said, that’s a pretty rich part of our literary culture. He wants to showcase that.

“We’re not trying to make a parochial statement about regional literature. Our judge, Peter Campion, is not from this region. He’s from Boston. He asked us, ‘am I expected to pick something that represents this region?’ Absolutely not.”

When asked why he went with Campion for a judge, Slager revealed that, although he’s publishing roughly half a dozen new poetry collections each year since coming to Milkweed about five years ago, he didn’t want to pick a judge from that stable. “I thought about and talked to a number of people and I just kept coming back to Peter. I think he’s going to be excellent.”

“Three of the best literary presses in the country, Graywolf, Coffeehouse, and Milkweed, have great national success, though they’re very much set in an upper-Midwestern location. What Milkweed has always done is publish writers in this region.”

For more information on Milkweed Editions and the Lindquist & Vennum Prize visit: http://www.milkweed.org/content/view/396/72/.

Photograph of Daniel Slager was taken by Travis Anderson.