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Finalist: Collected Poems , by the late Jack Gilbert (Alfred A. Knopf )

A half century of poems reflecting a creative author's commitment to living fully and honestly and to producing straightforward work that illuminates everyday experience with startling clarity.

Winners

Prize Winner in Poetry in 2013:

Sharon Olds

A book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge. Poetry

Finalists

Nominated as finalists in Poetry in 2013:

Bruce Weigl

A powerful collection of poems that explore the trauma of the Vietnam War and the feelings that have never left many of those who fought in the conflict.

The Jury

Carl Phillips(Chair )

professor of English

Maurice Manning

professor of English

C.D. Wright

Israel J. Kapstein Professor of Literary Arts

Winners in Poetry

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.

W.S. Merwin

A collection of luminous, often tender poems that focus on the profound power of memory.

2013 Prize Winners

Adam Johnson

An exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.

Ayad Akhtar

A moving play that depicts a successful corporate lawyer painfully forced to consider why he has for so long camouflaged his Pakistani Muslim heritage.

Sharon Olds

A book of unflinching poems on the author's divorce that examine love, sorrow and the limits of self-knowledge.

Caroline Shaw

A highly polished and inventive a cappella work uniquely embracing speech, whispers, sighs, murmurs, wordless melodies and novel vocal effects (New Amsterdam Records).