Tuesday, September 09, 2014

Announcing the 2014 Winners of the National Poetry Series Awards

The National Poetry Series and the University of Georgia Press is pleased to announce the results of the 2014 open competition. Congratulations to all!

The winners are:

Monograph by Simeon Berry of Somerville, Massachusetts, chosen by Denise Duhamel, to be published by University of Georgia Press.

Let's Let That Are Not Yet Inferno by Ed Pavlić of Athens, Georgia, chosen by John Keene, to be published by Fence Books. 

The Regret Histories by Joshua Poteat of Richmond, Virginia, chosen by Campbell McGrath, to be published by HarperCollins.

Double Jinx by Nancy Reddy of Madison, Wisconsin, chosen by Alex Lemon, to be published by Milkweed Editions.

Viability by Sarah Vap of Venice, California, chosen by Mary Jo Bang, to be published by Penguin Books.

The National Poetry Series was established in 1978 to ensure the publication of poetry books annually through participating publishers. More than 160 books have been awarded since the series’ inception. Publication is funded by the Lannan Foundation, Stephen Graham, the Joyce & Seward Johnson Foundation, Juliet Lea Hillman Simonds, and the Poetry Foundation.

"Monograph is one poet's primary research on all things love--the erotic, the domestic, love's glory, and its accompanying rage. Simeon Berry's voice is irresistibly authentic, even at its most crafty. . . . 'There are things I've done to make the story better . . . the girl with the skull and crossbones hearing aid. . . .' This poet writes what everyone else (or, at least, many of us) are thinking regarding the morality of memoir. 'Everything you are talking about are open secrets. She wants you to feel like you're handing over the nuclear launch codes or something.' Smart and also wise, Berry's poems are stripped bare of ornamentation and read like columns of pure light."—Denise Duhamel

Simeon Berry has been an associate editor for Ploughshares and won a Massachusetts Cultural Council Individual Artist Grant and a Career Chapter Award from the National Society of Arts and Letters. His work has appeared in CrazyhorseAGNIColorado ReviewBlackbirdDIAGRAM, the Iowa ReviewAmerican Letters & Commentary, and many other journals. His first book, Ampersand Revisited, also won the National Poetry Series (Fence Books) in 2013. He lives in Somerville, Massachusetts.

For more information, please contact:

The Coordinator 
The National Poetry Series 
57 Mountain Avenue 
Princeton, NJ 08540 
Phone: 609.430.0999 Fax: 609.430.9933