Jason Simpson

Poet Marianne Boruch has won other awards in the past, but nothing prepared her for the news that she’d won the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, the largest monetary prize for a single collection of poetry in the world. Boruch, who has been teaching at Purdue for nearly three decades, won the $100,000 award for her 2011 collection The Book of Hours. Nature-oriented poems dominate the collection, borne out of the extended periods Boruch spent in the woods over the past five years. Other poems in the collection depict people in more everyday settings, and some ruminate on poetry itself. As she prepared to leave for yesterday’s award ceremony at Claremont Graduate University in California, Boruch talked with IM about the award, her book, and great poetry.

“I feel like I might be the most blessed person in the city of Indianapolis,” says Jim Peal, strength coach for Butler University. Peal was diagnosed with colon cancer last month, but after undergoing surgery on Feb. 4, he is now cancer-free. The surgery went “fantastic,” and Peal says he will not need to have any further treatment. Peal had an early form of colon cancer, and the surgeons were able to remove it all.

If ever there were a time to be strong, Jim Peal is facing it. On Jan. 29, the Butler strength coach announced that he has colon cancer, and the groundswell of online support was almost immediate. In addition to expressing encouragement on Twitter, people have been posting on the Facebook page “I Have Coach Peal’s Back,” which already has more than 800 likes. The creators of the page will compile the messages into a booklet to give to Peal, and they’re considering “PealStrong” wristbands and T-shirts.