Claremont Graduate University announced last week the finalists for the $100,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. The annual award is given to honor a book by a midcareer poet. The finalists for the $10,000 Kate Tufts Discovery Award, given annually for a debut poetry collection, were also announced.
The finalists for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award are Kyle Dargan for Honest Engine (University of Georgia Press), Ross Gay for Catalog of Unabashed Gratitude (University of Pittsburgh Press), Amy Gerstler for Scattered at Sea (Penguin), Fred Moten for The Little Edges (Wesleyan), and Jennifer Moxley for The Open Secret (Flood Editions).
The finalists for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award are Meg Day for Last Psalm at Sea Level (Barrow Street), Bethany Schultz Hurst for Miss Lost Nation (Anhinga Press), Michael Morse for Void and Compensation (Canarium Books), Danez Smith for [insert] boy (YesYes Books), and Henry Walters for Field Guide a Tempo (Hobblebush Books).
The judges for both awards were Stephen Burt, Elena Karina Byrne, Brian Kim Stefans, Don Share, and judge chair Chase Twichell. The winners will be announced in March and honored at a ceremony in April at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
Previous winners of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, now in its twenty-fourth year, include Angie Estes, Afaa Michael Weaver, Marianne Boruch, Timothy Donnelly, and Chase Twichell. Previous winners of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award, established in 1993, include Brandon Som, Yona Harvey, Heidy Steidlmayer, Katherine Larson, and Atsuro Riley.
Photos (clockwise from top left): Dargan (Dale Robbins), Gay (Zach Hetrick), Gerstler, Moxley, Moten