The Most Interesting National Book Award
Finalists’ List Ever¹

Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan University Press)
Ann Lauterbach, Or to Begin Again (Viking Penguin)
Carl Phillips, Speak Low (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Open Interval (U. of Pittsburgh Press)
Keith Waldrop, Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy (UC Press)

 

Thanks to judges Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, A. Van Jordan,
Cole Swensen, & Kevin Young
for accomplishing the seemingly impossible:
nominating 5 excellent books

 

¹ This would be true also
if this were the list for the Pulitzer,
the National Book Critics’ Circle
or just about any other US-based prize