The National Poetry Series

Established in 1978, The National Poetry Series is a literary awards program which sponsors the publication of five books of poetry each year. The manuscripts, solicited through an annual open competition, are selected by poets of national stature and published by a distinguished group of trade, university, and small presses.

The specific purposes for which this organization is incorporated are:

• To add in a meaningful way to the number of poetry books published each year, making possible books which might not otherwise be published by providing both financial support and assistance in the process of manuscript solicitation, selection, and promotion.
  
  
• To support poetry and increase the audience for poetry by heightening its visibility among readers, broadening publisher involvement with its publication, and increasing booksellers’ willingness to display and promote it.
  
  
• To give American poets of national renown in the identification of emerging or less well-established poets.
  
  
• To provide the conditions and mechanisms for a group of trade, university, and small press publishers to work together on the promotion and marketing of five poetry books each year, thus providing a structural model for collective literary publishing ventures.

Books in this series

The Cloud That Contained the Lightning
Poems by Cynthia Lowen
Selected by Nikky Finney

Exit, Civilian
Poems by Idra Novey
Selected by Patricia Smith

Here Be Monsters
Poems by Colin Cheney
Selected by David Wojahn

If Birds Gather Your Hair For Nesting
Poems by Anna Journey
Selected by Thomas Lux

Stutter
Poems by William Billiter
Selected by Hilda Raz

Download the series flyer

Participating Publishers

Coffee House Press
Fence Books
HarperCollins Publishers
Penguin Books
University of Georgia Press