Finalist: Compass Rose , by Arthur Sze (Copper Canyon Press )
A collection in which the poet uses capacious intelligence and lyrical power to offer a dazzling picture of our inter-connected world.
Winners
Prize Winner in Poetry in 2015:
Gregory Pardlo
Clear-voiced poems that bring readers the news from 21st Century America, rich with thought, ideas and histories public and private.
Poetry
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Poetry in 2015:
Alan Shapiro
Finely crafted poems with a composure that cannot conceal the troubled terrain they traverse.
The Jury
The Jury
Bonnie Costello(Chair )
professor of English and American literature
Cornelius Eady
professor of literature and writing
David Orr
poetry columnist
Winners in Poetry
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.
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.
2015 Prize Winners
Anthony Doerr
An imaginative and intricate novel inspired by the horrors of World War II and written in short, elegant chapters that explore human nature and the contradictory power of technology.
Julia Wolfe
A powerful oratorio for chorus and sextet evoking Pennsylvania coal-mining life around the turn of the 20th Century.
Stephen Adly Guirgis
A nuanced, beautifully written play about a retired police officer faced with eviction that uses dark comedy to confront questions of life and death.
David I. Kertzer
An engrossing dual biography that uses recently opened Vatican archives to shed light on two men who exercised nearly absolute power over their realms.