Yael Valencia Aldana has been awarded the 2024 Pushcart Prize for the poem “Black Person Head Bob,” which will be featured in the 2024 edition of “Pushcart Prize XLIX: Best of the Small Presses.” Originally published by Torch Literary Arts in June 2023, the poem explores the way Black people silently yet soulfully acknowledge each other. It is one of the poems in Aldana’s forthcoming book of poetry, “Black Mestiza,” which will be published by University Press of Kentucky in January 2025.
Aldana is a Caribbean Afro-Latinx writer and poet who is the author of the chapbook, “Alien(s),” published by Bottlecap Press. She is the winner of the University Press of Kentucky New Poetry and Prose Series Prize 2023 in poetry, a finalist in the AWP Kurt Brown Scholarship in Creative Nonfiction, a semifinalist for the Scotti Merrill Award in Poetry, and a semifinalist for the Two Sylvia Press Wilder Poetry Prize. This is her first Pushcart Prize.
“Honestly, I’m stunned,” Aldana says. “I am so grateful for this honor. It just shows you don’t give up on yourself or your work. This poem was so hard to place and received so many rejections, but I kept trying because I felt it was an important poem about a subtle aspect in the Black community.” She decided to submit the poem one last time before shelving it. Finally, Torch Literary Arts — an online platform that publishes creative writing by Black women — accepted it. “I am so grateful to Torch and Pushcart for amplifying this poem and giving it a platform.”
Founded in 1976, The Pushcart Prize is among the most prestigious literary projects in the U.S. Literary magazines and small presses from around the world nominate thousands of works of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction, only a small fraction of which receive a Pushcart Prize and are published in the annual volume.
This article appears in May 22 – Jun 4, 2024.