The 2025 reading period for the Pitt Poetry Series is now open. Submissions to the Pitt Poetry Series are open to any poet writing in English who has published at least one full-length poetry collection. The qualification of prior full-length publication is defined as a book of 48 or more pages, exclusive of front matter, in a recognized publisher’s print edition of at least 500 copies. Poets who have not published a book before, or only in limited editions of less than 500 copies, or who have published chapbooks, should refer to the rules for our first-book competition, the Agnes Lynch…

The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press continues its tradition of publishing the finest contemporary poetry by announcing the forthcoming publication of the following collections: Steeplechase by Angela Ball: In a voice that is humorous, bewildered, disillusioned, hopeful, Steeplechase explores multiple landscapes, countries known and unknown, cities and inhabitants both aspirational and lost. On sale 2/10/2026   Antediluvian by Kameryn Alexa Carter: “Engaging with themes of the ecstatic, desire, mental illness, and spirituality, Antediluvian’s speaker calls on an intertextual constellation of artists as they attempt to wade through agoraphobia, parse out their relationship with God, and navigate…

Pittsburgh, PA – The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press is pleased to announce the finalists for the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, selected by Nate Marshall: Asa Drake, Maybe the Body Bobby Elliott, The Same Man Luke Patterson, Medic Alafia Sessions, Nine Drops of Turpentine Rob Shapiro, Human Nature The winner will be announced on December 11, 2024. Established in 1981, the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize is administered by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Named in honor of Agnes Lynch Starrett, the Press’s first director, the prize is awarded for a first full-length book…

Elisa Gabbert’s “On Poetry” column features a wonderful look at cloud imagery in poetry and the poems of Reginald Shepherd are featured, along with the cover of The Selected Shepherd. “Reginald Shepherd is also a cloud-spotter. Almost every poem in THE SELECTED SHEPHERD (University of Pittsburgh Press, $30) mentions clouds, the way almost every painting in a landscape gallery mentions clouds. (There are paintings of clouds, and those that only mention them in passing.) Shepherd isn’t quite writing “nature poems,” as we might say of Wright. But no poem about the world escapes nature, and clouds often enter as pure image:…

Following a long, distinguished career as a poet, teacher, and editor, Ed Ochester, series editor and creative force behind the Pitt Poetry Series of the University of Pittsburgh Press, has retired. Ochester took over the Pitt Poetry Series in 1978 and has published hundreds of collections by established and rising poets. When Ochester inherited the series, he sought to broaden the scope of what American poetry looked like, publishing women poets, queer poets, and poets of color at a time when there was little diversity to be found in the poetry publishing realm. Ochester became a driving force of American…