With all the upside-down-ness of the world, I’m grateful for some gleams of light to shine in with some exciting news about “Homeland of Swarms.” In February, I learned that I won the Florida Book Award Bronze Medal in Poetry! And then, in April the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation shortlist was announced, and “Homeland of Swarms” is one of the five translations named as finalists!
I am very grateful for these recognitions because they help shine a light on the travesty that Venezuelans have been facing for the past 17 years. Oriette’s collection of poetry, originally titled, “Cardiopatías,” was written in the years leading up to 2014, when it won the Emerging Poet Prize in Venezuela, and the reality that Venezuelans faced then has not changed. Eleven years later the world has remained mostly silent while the Venezuelan situation has worsened and worsened.
Thank you to the Florida Book Awards and PEN America judges, and congratulations to the other awardees and fellow longlisted poets and translators! The PEN shortlist was announced in April, and then the winner, Mira Rosenthal, was announced at the PEN Awards Ceremony in New York.
Lupita Eyde-Tucker is a bilingual poet and translator raised in New Jersey and Guayaquil, Ecuador. She is the winner of the 2021 Unbound Book Festival Emerging Poet Award, the 2019 Betty Gabehart Prize, and in 2018 was selected as an AWP Writer to Writer Mentee by poet Maggie Smith. In 2022 her poetry manuscript, "Eucalyptus," was a finalist for the Andrés Montoya Prize from Letras Latinas. 
Not Enough Poetry 