Pitt Poetry Series author Michael Wurster will receive a City Paper Person of the Year Award in Literature on January 9th, from 6-9 p.m., at the Greer Cabaret Theater, People of the Year Speakeasy 2024. Congratulations to Michael on this special recognition for his lifelong achievements in promoting poetry and literature in Pittsburgh. For Tickets visit People of the Year Speakeasy 2024: https://us.commitchange.com/pa/pittsburgh/pittsburgh-city-paper/events/people-of-the-year-speakeasy-2024

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…

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:…

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…