Rigoberto González Wins One of Poetry's Top Honors for Lifetime Achievement 

Rutgers-Newark professor and poet Rigoberto González has won the Poetry Foundation’s Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, one of the most prestigious honors awarded to poets and one of the nation’s largest literary cash prizes.

González, a distinguished professor of English and Creative Writing and the director of Rutgers-Newark’s MFA program in Creative Writing, received the award for lifetime achievement in craft, service to the literary arts and poetry criticism, the foundation announced yesterday.

The annual Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize recognizes a living United States poet with an award of $100,000. 

Over the past three decades, Rigoberto González has written 17 books in nearly every genre imaginable, from criticism to memoir and fiction to books for children. The Poetry Foundation is honoring him for his poetry, which Poetry magazine editor Adrian Matejka describes as "sumptuous and rich in its curiosities and carnalities."

Matejka goes on to say, "There is wonder abounding in González's poems, but not at the expense of clarity. He is both a creator of poems and a creator of space for others through his mentorship, critical work, and anthologies, most recently Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology. His work on and off the page has inspired generations of writers and shown them the true power of literature."

González was born in Bakersfield, California, and raised in Michoacán, Mexico. He earned a BA from the University of California, Riverside and graduate degrees from University of California, Davis and Arizona State University. A former critic at large for the LA Times and contributing editor for Poets & Writers, González is the series editor for the Camino del Sol Latinx Literary Series at the University of Arizona Press.