Poet Carolyn Guinzio awarded the 2025 Porter Fund Literary Prize

Poet Carolyn Guinzio

“I was absolutely thrilled to learn that I am this year's Porter Prize recipient,” said Guinzio. “To be welcomed into the literary community in this way is truly an honor, particularly considering how much I admire the work of the previous winners.”  

The Porter Fund Literary Prize is presented annually to an Arkansas writer with a substantial and impressive body of work that merits enhanced recognition. Past winners of the Porter Prize include Mara Leveritt, Morris Arnold, Werner Trieschmann, Kevin Brockmeier, and Jo McDougal—former Poet Laureate of Arkansas.  

While she’s not a native Arkansan, “the remarkable landscape and culture of Arkansas began figuring in my work almost as soon as we arrived here in 2002,” said Guinzio.  

“Living in the Ozark Mountains, the ever-changing environment has pushed my aesthetic and my vocabulary in ways that have profoundly enriched my writing life. I’m constantly grateful to be here.”  

Winners of the prestigious Porter Fund Literary Prize receive $5000, making it one of Arkansas’s most lucrative literary awards.  

Each year, a call for nominations from the Porter Fund Board of Directors is sent to previous Porter Fund Literary Prize winners, who then nominate and vote to select the new winner. 

“I think Carolyn has made a significant contribution not only to the landscape of contemporary American poetry but to Arkansas's poetry more specifically, as well as to the state's literary community," said 2003 Porter Fund Literary Prize recipient writer Kevin Brockmeier in his nomination of Guinzio.  

Guinzio’s poetry collections include: “Meanwhile in Arkansas” (2025), winner of the Quarterly West chapbook prize; “A Vertigo Book” (Word Works, 2021), winner of the Tenth Gate Prize and the Foreword Indies gold winner for poetry; “Ozark Crows” (Spuyten-Duyvil, 2018); “How Much Of What Falls Will Be Left When It Gets To The Ground?” (Tolsun Books, 2018); “Spine” (Parlor Press, 2016); “Spoke and Dark” (Red Hen Press, 2012), winner of the To The Lighthouse poetry prize presented by A Room Of Her Own Foundation; “Quarry” (Parler Press, 2008); “West Pullman” (Bordighera Press, 2005), winner of the Bordighera Poetry Prize; and an upcoming collection, “Cameo Blue” (Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2026). 

Guinzio’s photographs have appeared on book and journal covers, and her poetry films have screened at festivals throughout the world, including the Cadence Film Festival, where her film “Ozark Crows” won the jury award, and the Nature & Culture Film Festival in Copenhagen, where her films are archived at the Poetic Phonotheque. 

She co-founded the five-year (2011-2017) project YEW: A Journal of Innovative Writing & Images by Women. 

Hailing from the “Windy City,” Guinzio earned a B.A. from Columbia College and an M.F.A. from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College in New York. 

Guinzio is married to poet Davis McCombs, and they have two children—Warren, a recent graduate of Columbia University, and Charlotte, a 2025 Hendrix College graduate and Murphy Scholar in Literature and Language. 

The Porter Fund Literary Prize award ceremony will be held October 3 at 5 p.m. at the Central Arkansas Main Library in downtown Little Rock. More information closer to the event date can be found at porterfund.com.  

“Carolyn has consistently published new & exciting work with some of the best literary journals, magazines, and publishers,” said 2016 Porter Fund Literary Prize winner poet Sandy Longhorn, “but hasn’t received the national recognition she deserves. I’m glad to see that begin to change with her being awarded the Porter Prize.” 

About the Porter Fund Literary Prize 

The Porter Fund Literary Prize was founded in 1984 by novelist Jack Butler and novelist and lawyer Phil McMath to honor their professor Dr. Ben Kimpel, noted professor of English at the University of Arkansas.  At Kimpel’s request, the prize is named in honor of Kimpel’s mother, Gladys Crane Kimpel Porter. The annual prize, now $5,000, has been handed out to 40 poets, novelists, non-fiction writers, and playwrights who have an Arkansas connection. Visit porterfund.com to learn more.