Finalist: Core Samples from the World , by Forrest Gander (New Directions )
A compelling work that explores cross-cultural tensions in the world and digs deeply to identify what is essential in human experience.
Winners
Prize Winner in Poetry in 2012:
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.
Poetry
Finalists
Nominated as finalists in Poetry in 2012:
Ron Padgett
An enchanting collection of poems that juggle delight, wit and endless fascination with language.
The Jury
The Jury
Philip Schultz(Chair )*
poet and founder
Arthur Sze
poet and professor emeritus
Jean Valentine
poet and former state poet of New York
Winners in Poetry
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.
W.S. Merwin
A collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.
2012 Prize Winners
No award
No award
Manning Marable
An exploration of the legendary life and provocative views of one of the most significant African-Americans in U.S. history, a work that separates fact from fiction and blends the heroic and tragic.
John Lewis Gaddis
An engaging portrait of a globetrotting diplomat whose complicated life was interwoven with the Cold War and America's emergence as the world's dominant power.
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.