Humanities Center fellow wins poetry award from National Book Critics Circle

Troy Jollimore, an external faculty fellow at the Stanford Humanities Center and associate professor of philosophy at California State University-Chico, has won the 2006 National Book Critics Circle poetry award for his debut collection, Tom Thomson in Purgatory. He was one of five finalists in the poetry category, which included such acclaimed poets as W.D. Snodgrass, Frederick Seidel and the late Miltos Sachtouris.

The National Book Critics Circle is a nonprofit organization of nearly 700 active book reviewers. Every year, it presents awards for the best book in six categories: fiction, general nonfiction, biography, autobiography, poetry and criticism.

Tom Thomson in Purgatory, chosen by former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins for the 2005 Robert E. Lee & Ruth I. Wilson Poetry Book Award, was published by MARGIE / IntuiT House.

Jollimore is currently in residence at the Stanford Humanities Center, a research center at Stanford that offers year-long fellowships for the advanced study of history, philosophy and culture. His current work examines the concept of loyalty and its significance in ethical theorizing and moral practice.

Jollimore earned his PhD from Princeton University and has taught at Georgetown University and the University of California-Davis. He has published poetry in The Malahat Review, PRISM International, MARGIE and Ploughshares, and is the author of a philosophical monograph, Friendship and Agent-Relative Morality.

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