Each year four renowned poets select and introduce a winning manuscript for publication. Each winner receives $1000.
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Beginning in the 16th century, the chapbook has proved adaptable to a wide range of material, from political tracts to penny songs and poems. These inexpensive booklets were originally distributed to a diverse audience by "chapmen" who sold them at bars or on street corners with their other wares.
Today there is still an active community of chapbook publishers, and chapbooks can be found in all shapes and sizes, stapled together, silk-screened, or sewn, often in limited editions for collectors and enthusiasts of the medium.
The Poetry Society of America continues this tradition with its chapbook series presenting the work of new poets who have not yet published a full-length volume of poetry.
2012
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mere eye by Danielle Blau, selected by D. A. Powell
Self-Portrait as Missing Person by Justin Boening, selected by Dara Wier
Theory of Tides by Cherry Pickman, selected by Lucia Perillo
Travel and Leisure by Eric Bliman, selected by Vijay Seshadri
2011
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Dear Johnny, In Your Last Letter by Angela Veronica Wong, selected by Bob Hicok
Little Box of Cotton & Lightning by Marni Ludwig, selected by Susan Howe
What We Push Against by Alison Roh Park, selected by Joy Harjo
Your Bright Hand by E. J. Garcia, selected by Gerald Stern
2010
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Badger, Apocrypha by Adam Day, selected by James Tate
Black Anecdote by Andrew Seguin, selected by Rosanna Warren
Fragments of Loss by Hossannah Asuncion, selected by Kimiko Hahn
Slow Dance with Trip Wire by Camille Rankine, selected by Cornelius Eady