Books :: 2016 Miller Williams Poetry Prize Finalists

Every year, the University of Arkansas Press awards the Miller Williams Poetry Prize to four authors: one winner and three finalists, all of which are published with the winner receiving $5,000 in cash.

March 2016 saw the publication of the three 2016 finalists: When We Were Birds by Joe Wilkins, See You Soon by Laura McKee, and Cenotaph by Brock Jones.

Series Editor Billy Collins writes in each book’s preface:

See You Soon, the casual title of Laura McKee’s book, contains poems of powerful feeling that seem composed in the kind of tranquility of recollection. [ . . . ] [R]eaders will find in Brock Jones’s Cenotaph a new way of thinking and feeling about the reailties of combat. [ . . . ] Joe Wilkins’s [ . . . ] When We Were Birds, as the title indicates, is full of imaginative novelty as well as reminders that miraculous secrets are hidden in the fabric of everyday life.

All three titles—as well as the winning [explicit, lyrics] by Andrew Gent—are now available at the University of Arkansas Press website.