Self-Portrait as the "i" in Florida

". . . formally various and deliciously propulsive." —Kaveh AkbarA 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 family: 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.

P. Scott Cunningham is a poet and essayist from Boca Raton. His debut collection, Ya Te Veo (University of Arkansas, 2018), was selected by Billy Collins for the Miller Williams Poetry Series. His poems, essays, and translations have appeared in The Nation, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, and others. He is the editor of Eight Miami Poets (Jai Alai, 2014), a mini-anthology of Miami poets, and Ballerz 2K20 (O, Miami, 2021), a zine of basketball poems, as well as the creator and series editor of The Miami Trilogy, three anthologies of Miami writers that address issues critical to their communities. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and the founder of O, Miami, a nonprofit dedicated to amplifying the poetry of Miamians. He lives with his children and his wife, the writer Christina Frigo, in Illinois.