The award, given by Claremont Graduate University in California, is the largest monetary prize in the nation for a mid-career poet and one of the most prestigious in the world for poetry. Presented to Jones at an April awards ceremony in Los Angeles, it recognizes his most recent book, Salvation Blues: 100 Poems, 1985-2005, published last year by Houghton Mifflin. Jones selected 76 of the book's poems from his earlier collections; the remaining works are new poems.

Jones was "excited, surprised, and delighted," by the recognition, he said.

"I have always written, not for money or prizes, but because I love words and imagination and the truth. I was humbled in that I knew I was lucky, that there are many wonderful poets, and that such decisions are never easy."

Never easy, but time and time again Jones has earned top honors for his talents. In past years he has won the Harper Lee Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Jean Stein Award, the Academy of American Poets Lavan Younger Poets Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. One of his books also was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize.

"The University has supported me and other writers in many ways: most directly, by granting time to think, to read, and to write; but less directly, by supporting the community of writers—both students and faculty—who have thrived here over the years," he said. "Writing is solitary work, but no writer exists without the support of others."

Jones's past collections include Kingdom of the Instant (2004), Elegy for the Southern Drawl (1999), Things That Happen Once (1996), Apocalyptic Narrative (1993), and Transparent Gestures (1989), all from Houghton Mifflin, as well as The Unborn (Atlantic Monthly, 1985) and The Story They Told Us of Light (Univ. of Alabama Press, 1980).

A native of Alabama, Jones earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa and a master of fine arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He joined the SIUC faculty in 1985.

—by Sun Min, Univ. Communications