“Never quite knowing what to say or make of being alive on earth compels much of my writing toward how to be here as I flail through being here. I have a deep admiration and commitment for practicing how to be a part of the ‘flux’ of things.”

“For so long, I wrote like I didn’t have a body and yet as someone grounded in a place, and now I write as if my body is my ever-shifting home and home is a placelessness I’m still contending with.”

“The unquenchable thirst I have for language led me to poetry. And it still leads me to it, even now, even after all these years.”

"Through combining language and ideas not typically found in relationship with one another, poems allow us to see the world we know (and so easily glaze over) as fresh and novel. It wakes us up, not to something brand new, but to what has existed all along.”

“Poetry demands a kind of generosity that is difficult to practice in real life. I like thinking of poetry as a gateway into an ideal world, that talks about fun things and challenging things, with a level of trust that’s hard to come by in the world.”

“The love of poetry as a whole, rather than one particular school, is freeing. I’m willing to explode whatever I did last and see where the pieces land. The questions I’m grappling with in an individual poem or larger project will reveal a corresponding approach and form. “Voice,” then, seems like a matter of discernment and intuition—in the universe of all possible things you could say and ways you could say them, what are you uniquely called to express?”

“Can poetry, this thing I wanted and now have, hold everything for me?—all my joy and sorrow, my delight and regret? Should a poem have to? Then I wondered: How capacious is a poem? Almost immediately I knew my poems, for the foreseeable future, would be in proximity to this question.”

“Writing is like working out a puzzle—not therapy exactly, but a kind of exploration. Entering an undiscovered country and trying to get the lay of the land. When you reach a high point, you suddenly see the horizon and understand how you got there and what might lie beyond. Writing is the place where I feel most myself.”

"I think I eventually became loyal to a different kind of truth, an emotional truth that requires misremembering and collaging experiences from different phases of my life and imagination."

"At the intersection of my obsession with art, music, and the boundless worlds of books was poetry—a symphony for the page, a dance across the canvas of language.”

"Give yourself permission. Don’t question yourself before you’ve begun.”

"How do language, image, and form fight me on the page as I attempt to accurately map the full ecosystem of a feeling?”

"There is no clean, simple ‘growth' to be found here, but I think it would be silly for a book about clouds to not, in some way, embody change.”

The National Poetry Series congratulates the five winners of the 2025 National Poetry Series Open Competition: Hajjar Baban, Stephanie Horvath, Weston Morrow, Kira Alexis Tucker, and Yi Wei.

The National Poetry Series congratulates the five winners of the 2024 National Poetry Series Competition: Games for Children by Keith Wilson Chosen by Rosalie Moffett for Milkweed Editions 82nd Division by D.M. Aderibigbe Chosen by Colin Channer for Akashic Books Blue Loop by AJ White Chosen by Chelsea Dingman for University of Georgia Press Our Hands Hold Violence by Kieron Walquist Chosen by Brenda Hillman for Beacon Press Shade is a Place by MaKshya Tolbert Chosen by Maggie

The National Poetry Series, in collaboration with Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair, is pleased to announce the 2024 Paz Prize for Poetry winner: Venezuelan poet Maria Auxiliadora Alvarez for her manuscript Un sol caído avanza. Her book was chosen by German Guerra and will be published by Akashic Press in 2025. María Auxiliadora Álvarez (Caracas, Venezuela, 1956) is a professor emerita at Miami University, Ohio, since 2023. Growing up in different countries

Monday, April 15 Meet & Greet and Readings, Co-hosted with december 1-3 pm, Hearth & Soul (9640 Clayton Rd., 63124) This is a free event. No RSVP needed. Hearth & Soul will host Trethewey, Cunningham, Smith, Perry, and Hou for a writers salon where the authors will read from their work and sign books. Copies of the featured writers’ recent and well-known works will be available for sale; for pre-orders, email [email protected]. Panel: Keeping Language Alive 6

The National Poetry Series congratulates the five winners of the 2023 National Poetry Series Competition: Field Guide for Accidents by Albert Abonado Chosen by Mahogany L. Browne for Beacon Press Post-Volcanic Folk Tales by Mackenzie Schubert Poloyni Donnelly Chosen by Ishion Hutchinson for Akashic Books The Sky Was Once A Dark Blanket by Kinsale Drake Chosen by Jacqueline Trimble for University of Georgia Press Playing With The Jew by Ava Winter Chosen by Sean Hill

The National Poetry Series is proud to announce the five winners of the 2022 Open Competition, whose works will be published next year by our participating publishers: Organs of Little Importance by Adrienne Chung Chosen by Solmaz Sharif for Penguin Books Tender Headed by Olatunde Osinaike Chosen by Camille Rankine for Akashic Books Survival Strategies by Tennison S. Black Chosen by Adrienne Su for University of Georgia Press I Love Information by Courtney Bush Chosen

The National Poetry Series and Miami Book Fair are proud to announce that Oneyda Gonzalez is the winner of this year’s Paz Poetry Prize for an original manuscript of Spanish language poetry. The National Poetry Series, in collaboration with Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair, with the National Poetry Series, is pleased to announce the 2022 Paz Prize for Poetry winner: Cuban poet Oneyda Gonzalez for her manuscript El lazo infinito. Born in

Congratulations to poets Su Cho, Shelley Puhak, Kien Lam, No'u Revilla and Alexandra Lytton Regalado.

Three Poet Laureates and three Pulitzer Prize Winners read their work and discuss the role of the poet.

National Poetry Series founder and director Daniel Halpern reflects on the 50th anniversary of his publishing imprint, Ecco, in an interview with Mitchell Kaplan on LitHub.

The National Poetry Series congratulates the five winners of the 2020 National Poetry Series Competition: W.J. Herbert, Trevor Ketner, Teresa K. Miller, Amanda Moore, and Devon Walker-Figueroa.

Alejandro Pérez-Cortés is the winner of this year's Paz Poetry Prize for an original manuscript of Spanish language poetry.

Recent reviews spotlight winning poetry collections from the 2018 National Poetry Series: Jake Skeets, Eyes Bottle Dark, in The New York Times (9/17/2019) Daniel Poppick, Fear of Description in The New York Times (10/01/2019) Jon Sands, It’s Not Magic in The Boston Globe (9/26/2019)

The winners of the 2019 National Poetry Series are Heid Erdrich, Alexandria Hall, Diane Louie, Benjamin Garcia, and Michael Torres.

The National Poetry Series is proud to announce the winners of the 2018 Open Competition.

The National Poetry Series is pleased to announce the 2018 Paz Prize for Poetry winner, Puerto Rican poet Johanny Vazquez Paz for her manuscript Ofrezco mi corazón como una diana. The book, selected by judge Rigoberto Gonzalez, will be published in both English and Spanish by Akashic Books.  

“For Want of Water”: The Incredible Honor of Recognition from the National Poetry Series - November 02, 2017

The winners of the 2017 National Poetry Series are GennaRose Nethercott, Dominique Christina, Jos Charles, Lindsay Bernal, and J.Michael Martinez.

Daniel Halpern, founder of The National Poetry Series, writes for The New York Times: “A Few Questions for Poetry.”

Join us for a short reading and celebration of the 2015 National Poetry Series Winners: Justin Boening, Jennifer Kronovet, Melissa Range, Danniel Schoonebeek, and Joshua Bennett. The Potter’s House is a nonprofit café, bookstore, and community space in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of DC. Their bookstore specializes in social movements, cultural studies, and spiritual traditions as well as a curated selection of fiction, poetry, and children’s books centered on multicultural voices. “In our rapidly-changing city—one

The National Poetry Series 2017 Competition is underway, and will accept submissions through February 15, 2017. Go to  http://nationalpoetry.wpengine.com/apply/#nps-open for submission guidelines.

The National Poetry Series, together with Miami Book Fair, congratulates Legna Rodriguez Iglesias for winning the 2016 Paz Prize for her manuscript, Miami Century Fox.

The National Poetry Series announces the winners of the 2016 Open Competition: William Brewer, Sasha Pimentel, Jeffrey Schultz, Sam Sax, and Chelsea Dingman.