Self-Portrait as the "i" in Florida (Donald Justice Poetry Prize)

". . . formally various and deliciously propulsive." —Kaveh Akbar

A love letter to Miami and a meditation on fatherhood, Self-Portrait as the “i” in Florida paints a vivid picture of contemporary South Florida in all its contradictions and beauty. 

Selected by Major Jackson as the winner of the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, Cunningham’s second collection weaves together ecological and familial landscapes, capturing both the spectacle—burning sugarcane fields, snake farms, chaotic highways—and the daily rituals that bind a school drop-offs, sick days, and small kindnesses. Blending formalist and free verse, the book becomes both an inquiry into belonging and a celebration of the essential everyday moments that define a life. 

At once panoramic and deeply personal, Cunningham writes with a documentarian’s eye and a father’s heart.