National Book Foundation Announces the Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry

Mar. 15, 2025

National Book Foundation Announces the Longlist for The 2024 National Book Award for Poetry.

The Longlist for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry has been announced.

This year’s award nominees include Anne Carson’sWrong Norma,Fady Joudah’s[…],Dorianne Laux’sLife on Earth,Gregory Pardlo’sSpectral Evidence,Rowan Ricardo Phillips’SilverandOctavio Quintanilla’sThe Book of Wounded Sparrows.

Other contenders includem.s. RedCherries’mother, Diane Seuss’Modern Poetry, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha’sSomething About LivingandElizabeth Willis’Liontaming in America.

Everyone but Rowan Ricardo Phillips is a first-time finalist. Phillips was Longlisted in 2015 for his poetry collectionHeaven.

University of Akron Press

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“Anne Carson’s latest collection considers Roget’s Thesaurus, her father, Guantánamo, water and many more deceptively disconnected topics that, as the collection’s title suggests, might seem ‘wrong,’” per the press release. “Dorianne Laux tenderly examines the quotidian — a shovel and rake, Bisquick, salt and even a can of WD-40—alongside motherhood, aging and loss.”

“Fady Joudah’s collection of poems is a rumination on the unspeakable atrocities of war; the present and ongoing erasure of Palestinian people, history and culture; and a dedication to a people’s everyday desires and humanity,” the release continues. “Elizabeth Willis investigates Mormonism —the religion she was born into — and its influence on domestic labor, economics and family dynamics.”

“Gregory Pardlo traces the ways in which American society has historically regarded Black people as threats and how these panic-driven perceptions influence the ongoing criminalization and persecution of Black bodies.”

Graywolf Press

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“Octavio Quintanilla makes a history of dislocation physical and transforms it into a source of creativity. In the face of displacement, grief and the ongoing horrors of war, Lena Khalaf Tuffaha scrutinizes language and the obfuscation of Palestinian history, both in Palestine and across the diaspora,” the statement reads.

New Directions Publishing

Publishers submitted 299 books for the 2024 National Book Award for Poetry. This year’s judges are Carolyn Forché, Tyehimba Jess, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Rena Priest and Richard Blanco, who also serves as the chair.

For more information about the 75th National Book Awards Ceremony & Benefit Dinner and to register for the broadcast, please visit theNational Book Awards.

source: people.com