The Poetry Society of America has announced that Darcie Dennigan has been awarded the inaugural Anna Rabinowitz Prize, which celebrates poets and their collaborators for “venturesome, interdisciplinary work made in the previous year and combining poetry and any other art or discipline.” Established by the children of poet, librettist, and editor Anna Rabinowitz to honor her innovative accomplishments, the prize awards $1,000 and, in its inaugural year, was judged by Matthea Harvey.

Dennigan, whose two most recent poetry collections are Palace of Subatomic Bliss and Madame X, both from Canarium Books, won for The Happy End, an athletic performance piece, a theatrical adaptation of Mónica de la Torre's poetry book The Happy End / All Welcome (Ugly Duckling Presse, 2017). About Dennigan’s adaptation, Harvey writes that it “jumps off the page onto the stage, sparkling with wit and absurdity. Given that de la Torre's book drew inspiration from Martin Kippenburger's exhibit, The Happy End of Franz Kafka's Amerika (Amerika was Kafka's unfinished novel), it seems fitting that Dennigan takes on yet another transformation.” The Happy End was performed as part of the Providence Fringe Festival in 2018 at the Wilbury Theatre.

Submissions for the Anna Rabinowitz Prize will be welcomed from October 1 to December 22 of every year and, according to the guidelines, are open to works that blend visual art and poetry, dance and poetry, and music and poetry, “as well as more eclectic collaborations involving poetry and technology, the sciences or math.”