17th Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize
Judge: Alice Fulton
The winner of the seventeenth Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is James D’Agostino’s The Goldfinch Caution Tapes.
Mr D’Agostino will receive a cheque for $3,000 and Waywiser will publish The Goldfinch Caution Tapes in the spring of 2023, when he will read alongside Alice Fulton, the seventeenth contest’s judge, under the auspices of the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington D.C.
It took the press’s screening panel two months of careful reading, deliberation and discussion to narrow the field of 321 submissions to the group of finalists which, stripped of all identifying reference, was then sent to Ms Fulton. Her decision was relayed to the press in the first week of April.
Our congratulations go not just to James D’Agostino 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.
Clicking on the links below will allow you to read poems from the collections as well biographical notes about their authors.
Winner
James D’Agostino, The Goldfinch Caution Tapes
Nominees
(in name order)
Katie Chaple, How clearly you can see some nights
Kerry James Evans, Arachne’s Tapestry
Patrick Errington, The Swailing
Laura Newbern, A Night in the Country
Hannah Louise Poston, Julia Hungry
Anele Rubin, These Trinkets I Return to You
Rob Stephens, Nothing Sacred
D. H. Tracy, The New New Normal