16th Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize

Judge: Vijay Seshadri

The winner of the sixteenth Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is Danielle Blau’s peep.

Ms Blau, of Ridgewood, New York will receive a cheque for $3,000 and Waywiser will publish peep in the spring of 2022, when she will read alongside Vijay Seshadri, the sixteenth contest’s judge, at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.

It took the press’s screening panel two months of careful reading, deliberation and discussion to narrow the field of 400 submissions to the group of finalists which, stripped of all identifying reference, was then sent to Professor Seshadri. His decision was relayed to the press in the last week of March.

Our congratulations go not just to Danielle Blau and to those whose manuscripts reached the later stages of the contest — the semi-finalists and finalists are listed below — but to everyone else who entered. It is thanks to everyone who participated that the latest contest has been another big success.

Poems from the submissions below together with biographical notes about the poets will be featured on this site in the near future.

 

 

Winner

Danielle Blau, peep

 

Nominees

(in name order)

Jacob Boyd, Tattoo & Binnacle

Martin Edmunds, A Flame in a Stable

Derek Gromadzki, Horology

Jared K. Hayley, The Depopulate

Sophie Klahr, Two Open Doors in a Field

Kevin McFadden, Wicked Bible

Mary Tautin Moloney, At the Base of Kaaterskill Falls

Laura Newbern, A Night in the Country

Susan Parr, Devera

Isaac Pickell, It’s Not Over Once You Figure It Out

Marsha Pomerantz, Ravel and Cleave

Michael Rutherglen, Summer in Symmetry

Jessica Savitz, Television in the Mountains

Christian Schlegel, Friend-Poems

Peter Specker, Mirrors

Ethan Stebbins, Selected Correspondence

Henry Walters, The Nature Thief