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Danniel Schoonebeek ’08

The National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing (Poetry) Fellowship is …

Danniel Schoonebeek ’08 was awarded a distinguished Creative Writing (Poetry) Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts in 2019 that came with a $25,000 award.

Schoonebeek’s second book of poems, Trebuchet (2016), was selected for publication by the University of Georgia Press through the renowned National Poetry Series awards program.

A year before, the book was selected for a 2015 National Poetry series award, chosen by poet Kevin Prufer to be published by University of Georgia Press in 2016.

The renowned National Poetry Series (NPS) awards program ensures that volumes of poetry by talented writers get published every year. The judges are distinguished poets who select manuscripts from an open competition and former winners include Billy Collins, Alice Fulton, Terrance Hayes, Adrian Matejka, and Kevin Young, among many others.

Schoonebeek’s first book of poems, American Barricade, was published by YesYes Books in 2014. It was named one of the year’s ten standout debuts by Poets & Writers and called “a groundbreaking first book that stands to influence its author’s generation” by Boston Review.

Schoonebeek is one of several co-organizers and a founding member who opened the nonprofit art collective Bushel in the small town of Delhi, NY.

He grew up in a small village in upstate New York and now splits his time between Clinton Hill, Brooklyn and a studio in upstate New York. He lives with his partner and their “very troubled” dog.

(Read his poem Chorus, printed in the Nov. 16, 2015 edition of The New Yorker.)

After winning the NPS award, Schoonebeek answered questions about the experience, his next book, and his time at Purchase. Read those responses here.