Philosophy graduate student Phillip Barron will receive the 2019 Nicolás Guillén Outstanding Book Award for his book of poetry, What Comes from a Thing (Fourteen Hills Press, 2015). The Guillén Award, given by the Caribbean Philosophical Association, recognizes contributions to philosophical literature. The award will be presented at the CPA’s annual conference, June 6-8, at Brown University in Providence, RI.

Barron earned an MFA in creative writing before entering UConn’s Philosophy program. What Comes from a Thing is his first book of poetry. An excerpt from the referee report submitted to the Awards Committee calls the book “a stunning piece of poetic philosophical work. It is a masterpiece of phenomenological description in which poetry is not application or a technique for profundity but instead at the heart of philosophical/poetic evocation. ”