Pittsburgh, PA – The University of Pittsburgh Press is thrilled to announce that Terrance Hayes, winner of the National Book Award and one of the leading voices in American poetry, will serve as judge of the 2026 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize. Submissions are now open for the first full-length book prize, with the winner receiving publication in the Pitt Poetry Series and a cash award of $5,000. Hayes, who has served as co-editor of the Pitt Poetry Series with Nancy Krygowski and Jeffrey McDaniel for four years, has also decided that the time is right to step back from…

Pittsburgh, PA — Bobby Elliott of Portland, Oregon, is the winner of the 2025 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for his collection, The Same Man, selected by poet Nate Marshall. The University of Pittsburgh Press will publish The Same Man as part of the acclaimed Pitt Poetry Series on September 9, 2025. “Bobby Elliott’s The Same Man confronts the subject of fatherhood with an honesty and tenderness rarely accorded to the typical secondary parent. In these poems, we see a pair of imperfect men reach toward each other and, indeed, toward the work of both fathering and being fathered,” states…

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…

The Pitt Poetry Series at the University of Pittsburgh Press upholds a tradition of publishing distinguished contemporary poetry. The series is honored to continue that tradition in the Fall 2024 with the following collections:   Dragstripping by Jan Beatty (on sale September 3, 2024)  Still City by Oksana Maksmychuk (on sale November 5, 2024)  Querida by Nathan Xavier Osorio, winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize (on sale September 10, 2024)  Absent Here by Bret Shepard, winner of the 2023 Donald Hall Prize for Poetry (on sale October 8, 2024)  Purchase by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon (on sale October…

Nathan Xavier Osorio of Los Angeles, California, is the winner of the 2024 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize for his collection Querida. Osorio’s debut collection was selected by poet Shara McCallum. The University of Pittsburgh Press will publish Querida as part of the acclaimed Pitt Poetry Series on September 10, 2024. “Memory is a guiding force in Nathan Osorio’s stunning debut, Querida,” states Shara McCallum. “From the opening, single-sentence tour-de-force of a poem to sonnet-sequences throughout, Osorio’s formal agility and singular voice takes hold of our attention and never lets it go.” Querida is a place-based lyrical meditation on the…