Rochester, NY. March 2nd, 2026—Boa Editions is proud to announce that Alejandro Lucero of Baltimore, MD is the winner of the 25th annual A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize. His winning manuscript, At the Bottom of the Sea with One Light, was selected by celebrated poet and writer Rigoberto González. At the Bottom of the Sea with One Light will be published by Boa Editions in Spring 2027 as part of the New Poets of America Series with a foreword by Rigoberto González. Lucero will also receive a $1,000 honorarium.
On selecting this title, González writes: "Alejandro Lucero’s gorgeous book is a loving tribute to those dots on the map that shape the rest of our lives: our small towns, our flawed parents, our mostly uneventful childhoods. And he reminds us that the farther we journey from them, temporally, geographically, or both, the more treasured they become because they’re the evidence of who we are or were—what we will leave behind when we too fold into the all-consuming quiet of memory."
In addition to the winning manuscript, González selected two runners-up for the prize:
RUNNERS-UP:
Canto Immigrante by Gerardo Pacheco
All the Boats I Have Built by Chukwuemeka Nome
On winning the Poulin Prize:
"I want to thank Rigoberto González for seeing something in my manuscript, At the Bottom of the Sea with One Light, and selecting it for the A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize. It is an honor to publish my first full-length collection with Boa Editions—who has helped in my discovery of authors such as Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Geffrey Davis, Li-Young Lee, Lucille Clifton, and many other voices I couldn’t picture a world of poetry without.” —Alejandro Lucero
Alejandro Lucero’s chapbook, Sapello Son, was named the Editors’ Selection for the Frost Place Competition (Bull City Press, 2024). His work appears in Best New Poets 2023 & 2025, Cincinnati Review, Ecotone, Gulf Coast, Missouri Review, Southern Review, and other journals and anthologies. Originally from Sapello, New Mexico, he currently lives in Baltimore, where he is a Salter Lecturer in the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins and a senior editor for The Hopkins Review.
Rigoberto González is the author of 20 books of poetry and prose, and the editor of Latino Poetry, a Library of America anthology. His awards include the PEN/Voelcker Award in Poetry, the Lenore Marshall Prize from the Academy of American Poets, the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America, a Lambda Literary Award, The Poetry Center Book Award, Guggenheim, Lannan, NEA, NYFA, and USA Rolón fellowships. He is currently distinguished professor at the MFA program in Creative Writing at Rutgers-Newark, the State University of New Jersey.
Established in 2000, the A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize is awarded annually to honor a poet’s first full-length collection of poetry. The winner is selected each year by a nationally recognized poet from a competitive pool of manuscripts. Winning manuscripts are published within the A. Poulin, Jr. New Poets of America Series. Recent Poulin Prize winners have included Splashed Things by Leigh Lucas, Second Nature by Chaun Ballard, and Beforelight by Matthew Gellman. Other renowned debuts in the New Poets of America Series include Rose by Li-Young Lee, Awake by Dorianne Laux, and The Philosopher's Club by Kim Addonizio.
