“Precious Words” Prize

Each Year Winning Poet Gets $500 Prize!!

The Gregg Barrios Precious Words Prize

Est. 2017

URBAN-15 announces the creation of “The Gregg Barrios Precious Words Prize” for Outstanding Poetry Performance. Through a community and worldwide selection process the premier Precious Words Prize will be awarded to a performing MEGA CORAZON poet. The winner, selected by the on-line audience; YOU! You have the opportunity to cast your vote on your favorite poet this year. The winner will be announced at the end of National Poetry Month.

The “Precious Words Prize” was founded by Gregg Barrios whose generous donation to URBAN-15 provides the source of this prize. Gregg Barrios is a playwright, poet, and journalist. As the books editor of The San Antonio Express-News, in 2001 he began featuring a local poem in every Sunday edition, a tradition in place for over 20 years. Gregg is a longtime contributor to the Los Angeles Times and The Texas Observer. He is 2013 USC-Annenberg Getty Arts Journalism Fellow and was inducted into the Texas Institute of Letters in 2015. An anthology of his poetry, “My Life is the Poem I Never Wrote: Selected and New Poetry 1969-2021″ is forthcoming from Hansen Poetry Series. He is a 2018 Yale Fellow in Theater Arts.  In addition, Mr. Barrios recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award from Voices de la Luna, a quarterly Poetry and Literary Arts magazine. The Gregg Barrios Main Stage at Overtime Theater is named in honor of his support for local theater.