Joyelle McSweeney, a University of Notre Dame professor, was one of eight writers to win the Windham-Campbell Prize for her poetry.
McSweeney, who chairs the department of English in the College of Arts & Letters and the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English, received a $175,000 prize to support her work.
“This prize recognizes the body of work I’ve created during my 20 years here at Notre Dame, in which I’ve been inspired and supported by so many colleagues in every discipline,” she said in a press release. “In this sense, this prize also recognizes Notre Dame’s unwavering support for research and creativity across science, humanities and the arts. We need every route to truth, and we need to do it together.”
McSweeney, who has written nine books, most recently published “Death Styles,” a collection of poetry released in 2024.
“Poetry, for me, is a quest to find out why we have to live this way, what the gods might have in store for us, how we can get back what we lost, and what we can give to each other,” she said.
Her 2022 poetry collection “Toxicon and Arachne” won the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America.
McSweeney earned a Bachelor of Arts in English and American Literature from Harvard University in 1997, and a Master of Philosophy in English studies from the University of Oxford in 1999.
