Poet
Publications & Prizes
Prizes include the 2018 Center for the Book Arts Letterpress Poetry Chapbook Prize (selected by former US Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey); 2nd Prize in the 2018 Bridport Poetry Prize, UK (selected by Daljit Nagra); the 2015 (Inaugural) Resurgence Prize for Poetry (selected by former UK Poet Laureate Andrew Motion; Alice Oswald; and Jo Shapcott); the 2014 May Swenson Prize for Ode to the Heart Smaller than a Pencil Eraser (selected by Mark Doty for Utah State University Press); and The 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize for Juan Luna's Revolver (University of Notre Dame Press).
Other honors include the 2007 49th Parallel Poetry Prize; the 2007 James Hearst Poetry Prize (selected by former US Poet Laureate Ted Kooser); the 2006 National Writers Union Poetry Prize(selected by Adrienne Rich); the 2006 Richard Peterson Poetry Prize (Crab Orchard Review); the 2006 Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry; the 2004 Fugue Poetry Prize(selected by Ellen Bryant Voigt); Finalist, the 2003 Larry Levis Editors Prize for Poetry, The Missouri Review; Finalist, the 2003 Dorset Prize (Tupelo Press); the first Sylvia Clare Brown Fellowship,Ragdale Foundation (2007); two Pushcart Prize nominations; a 1998 Fellowship at the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers in Scotland.
Originally from Baguio City in the Philippines, Luisa is also an eleven-time recipient of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature in three genres (poetry, nonfiction, and short fiction) and its Hall of Fame distinction; the Palanca award is the Philippines' highest literary distinction.