Millicent Graham, Jamaican poet and author of the book, The Damp in Things, has been selected one of 17 persons worldwide to receive full funding from the US Department of State to participate in the prestigious International Writing Program (IWP) at the University of Iowa, the premier centre for writing in the United States. Millicent's nomination for the programme was advanced through the Public Affairs Section at the US Embassy in Kingston.

The project is a three-month residency programme designed for established and emerging creative writers - poets, fiction writers, dramatists, and non-fiction writers. The aim is to introduce these talented individuals to American life and to provide them with time in a setting congenial to their efforts, for the production of literary work.

Numerous awards

Graham, who is also a budget analyst at the Jamaica Public Service Company, holds a Master of Science degree in human centred computer systems from the University of Sussex in the United Kingdom. A recipient of a Calabash International Literary Festival Scholarship in 2003 and 2005, Millicent has won silver and bronze medals in the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission Creative Writing Competition. Her work has been published in The Caribbean Writer, Volume 17; Bearing Witness: An annual anthology, and A Journal of Caribbean Arts and Letters, Volume 5, Number 1.

In a review of The Damp of Things, Graham's first book of poems to be launched on Thursday, July 16, Peepal Tree Press of the UK notes, "For a poet publishing her first collection, Graham's sense of irony, and instinct for surprise and freshness in image are remarkably mature and sophisticated. But it is the sharpness of image and the precision in her use of language that announce the arrival of an extremely talented poet." It further states, "The poems by Millicent Graham have a compactness and economy that belies the complex and expansive range of emotions and considerations that occupy her imagination. Graham's poems offer us a way to see her distinctly contemporary and urban Jamaica through the slant eye of a surrealist, one willing to see the absurdities and contradictions inherent in the society that preoccupies her."

The criteria for selection for the IWP include the publication of one volume or the equivalent in works that have appeared in significant publications (anthologies, journals, literary magazines) over a period of at least two years. Participants in the IWP will be involved in various literary activities such as giving and attending talks, readings and meetings with well-known and emerging visiting American writers. The program will have opportunities for writers to participate in optional collaborative projects with artists from other disciplines including theatre and dance.

The IWP works closely with the Iowa Writers' Workshop, the Non-Fiction Writing Program, the Master of Fine Arts Program in Translation, and the Playwrights Workshop, as well as academic programs in Film Studies, Comparative Literature, and African, Asian, and other literatures.

The 2009 residency will take place August through November. Since 1967, more than a thousand writers from more than 120 countries have attended the IWP at the University of Iowa.