Finalist: The Big Smoke , by Adrian Matejka (Penguin )
An imaginative work by a commanding poet who engages the history and mythology of larger-than-life boxer Jack Johnson.
Winners
Prize Winner in Poetry in 2014:
Vijay Seshadri
A compelling collection of poems that examine human consciousness, from birth to dementia, in a voice that is by turns witty and grave, compassionate and remorseless.
Poetry
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Poetry in 2014:
Morri Creech
A book of masterly poems that capture the inner experience of a man in mid-life who is troubled by mortality and the passage of time, traditional themes that are made to feel new.
The Jury
The Jury
Elizabeth Alexander(Chair )
Thomas E. Donnelley Professor of African American Studies and professor of American Studies and English
Adam Kirsch
senior editor
Campbell McGrath
Philip and Patricia Frost Professor of Creative Writing
Winners in Poetry
Sharon Olds
A book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge.
Tracy K. Smith
A collection of bold, skillful poems, taking readers into the universe and moving them to an authentic mix of joy and pain.
Kay Ryan
A body of work spanning 45 years, witty, rebellious and yet tender, a treasure trove of an iconoclastic and joyful mind.
Rae Armantrout
A book striking for its wit and linguistic inventiveness, offering poems that are often little thought-bombs detonating in the mind long after the first reading.
2014 Prize Winners
Donna Tartt
A beautifully written coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving boy's entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction, a book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.
Annie Baker
A thoughtful drama with well-crafted characters that focuses on three employees of a Massachusetts art-house movie theater, rendering lives rarely seen on the stage.
Alan Taylor
A meticulous and insightful account of why runaway slaves in the colonial era were drawn to the British side as potential liberators.
Megan Marshall
A richly researched book that tells the remarkable story of a 19th century author, journalist, critic and pioneering advocate of women's rights who died in a shipwreck.