Meet the National Book Critics Circle 2025-2026 Emerging Critics Fellows! www.bookcritics.org/emerging-cri...

Lovely time in Minneapolis: statue of St. Francis, Donald Shepard (Como Park Conservatory); "Egret," Kitagami Seigyū (Minneapolis Institute of Art); Weisman Art Museum; Minnehaha Falls.

Scenes from La Jolla: hang gliding at sunset, the Louis Kahn-designed Salk Institute, matcha tiramisu at Ee Nami Tonkatsu Izakawa.

Video for our June 26th conversation on poetry criticism is available at this link: bit.ly/40qVIXJ

Join us today, June 26, 6 p.m. ET, for a National Book Critics Circle discussion about poetry criticism!

Join us Thurs., June 26, 2025, 6 p.m. ET, for Nat'l Book Critics Circle conversation with Anahid Nersessian, Stephanie Burt, & David Orr. Adam Dalva, Rebecca Morgan Frank, & I will introduce and ask questions. Link in linktree in my profile. (Quote: Keats’s Odes: A Lover’s Discourse, by Anahid.)

Today's Weekly Read is "Word" by David Woo from Issue 5! 🖋️ @davidwoo.bsky.social Read the full poem: blreview.org/poetry/word/ #poetry

Three distinguished poetry critics, David Orr (photo: Julie Prisloe), Anahid Nersessian, & Stephanie Burt join Adam Dalva, Rebecca Morgan Frank, and me for an online conversation about poetry criticism on June 26, 6 pm ET. Register at link in linktree in my profile. @bookcritics.bsky.social

@bookcritics.bsky.social presents an all-star online conversation on poetry criticism with Stephanie Burt (photo: Steph Kloss), Anahid Nersessian, & David Orr on June 26, 6 pm ET. @adamdalva.bsky.social introduces, @poetmorgan.bsky.social and I moderate. Register at link in linktree in my profile.

Santorini, one of the loveliest places that I've seen, and we were lucky to visit before the summer crowds.

The winner of the NBCC Award for Poetry is “Wrong Norma” by Anne Carson! #NBCCAwards @ndbooks.bsky.social

Delighted that People headlined our poetry winner Anne Carson (as well as Sandra Cisneros) in their article on our recent NBCC ceremony: people.com/see-the-full...

The brilliant finalists for the NBCC poetry award. Join me on Wednesday as I emcee our reading in NYC for finalists in all categories. The awards ceremony is on Thursday. Tickets and details in the linktree in my bio. Buy tickets soon!

NBCC’s Emerging Critics Fellowship is accepting applications for 2025-2026. Apply at nbcc.submittable.com. Deadline: Friday, May 9 at 11:59 PM Pacific.

A poem by NBCC board member and poetry chair @davidwoo.bsky.social appears in the anthology "A Century of Poetry in The New Yorker: 1925-2025":

Delighted to appear in this majestic anthology edited by Kevin Young for @newyorker.com. This morning I encountered this copy in pride of place at the front of my favorite local (Phoenix) bookstore, Changing Hands.

Grateful to be part of the unanimous vote of the board @bookcritics.bsky.social to sign this important statement:

Two years ago my partner and I drove from Phoenix to L.A. for a reading at this beautiful venue. In many decades of passing through the area, I had never seen the hills there look more lush and verdant. The atmospheric rivers that had deposited torrential rains were clearly unusual, and (1/2)

Many birthdays ago, that is, on this day sometime in the last century, I was a teacher in Beijing, passing the time with Wittgenstein, who wrote, "A poet has constantly to ask himself, 'But is what I am writing really true?' and this does not necessarily mean, 'Is this how it happens in reality?'"

In addition to chairing poetry, I was honored to serve on the two committees that selected the superb work by Lauren Michele Jackson and the five extraordinary biographies by Cynthia Carr, Jane Kamensky, Tiya Miles, Amy Reading, and Jean Strouse.

Congratulations to the poetry finalists: Oliver Baez Bendorf, Anne Carson, Jennifer Chang, Dawn Lundy Martin, & Carl Phillips; & our poetry nominee for the Leonard first book award, Cindy Juyoung Ok. I'm honored to emcee the finalists reading March 19; our ceremony is 3/20. @bookcritics.bsky.social

I can't wait to tell you what we on the NBCC poetry committee decided for our top five and as our poetry nominee for the Leonard award for best debut. An extraordinary shortlist from an already amazing longlist. Look for our announcement on Thursday!

For @theemancipator.org, NBCC board member @davidwoo.bsky.social interviewed poet Danez Smith about their curation of the anthology "Blues in Stereo: The Early Works of Langston Hughes":

Delighted to speak with Danez Smith about Langston Hughes for @theemancipator.org

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Wind Shear” from Yard Show by Janice N. Harrington (BOA Editions). Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd #poetry (10/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “What to Say of the Entirety” from Wrong Norma by Anne Carson @ndbooks.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd #poetry (9/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Eshu or Ambition” from Sturge Town by Kwame Dawes (W. W. Norton) Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (8/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Refrain” from Scattered Snows, to the North by Carl Phillips @fsgbooks.bsky.social @cphillipspoet.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (7/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Coming Out of the Shower,” from The Palace of Forty Pillars by Armen Davoudian @tinhouse.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (6/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Then Death Came Like a Hammer Not a Metaphor,” from Instructions for the Lovers by Dawn Lundy Martin (Nightboat Books) Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (5/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Cliché,” from A Gaze Hound That Hunteth by the Eye by V. Penelope Pelizzon @vpenelopepelizzon.bsky.social @upittpress.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (4/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Everywhere All At Once,” from Consider the Rooster by Oliver Baez Bendorf (Nightboat Books) @oliverbaezbendorf.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (3/10)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Remnants,” from Cloud Missives by Kenzie Allen @tinhouse.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (2/10, by book title)

Poem of the Day, from the books longlisted for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry: “Prodigal,” from An Authentic Life by Jennifer Chang @twignoise @coppercanyonpress.bsky.social Look for our finalist announcement on January 23rd (1/10, by book title)

Thank you to @bookriot.bsky.social for this article about our poetry longlist bookriot.com/the-national...

Delighted that People magazine wrote about our poetry longlist. The poets deserve the attention. Period. people.com/national-boo...

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Award for Poetry! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/18/2...

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/19/2...

Wow. I'm incredibly honored.

As chair of the NBCC poetry committee, I’m delighted that our search for all poems “counter, spare, original, strange” resulted in a slate of such high quality. An added bonus: the range of aesthetics, identities, and career spans from publishers large and small. Congratulations, poets!

The reading committee and I are hugely proud to give you the 2024 NBCC longlist for nonfiction:

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Award for Nonfiction! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/18/2...

I've never been as immersed in contemporary poetry as I have this year as the NBCC poetry chair and a reviewer for @literaryhub.bsky.social. Such a pleasure and an honor.

My first year on the Biography committee under the wise leadership of our chair Elizabeth Taylor. I’ve had the pleasure of observing what Virginia Woolf called the “biographer’s imagination” play out in the methods and choices of this year’s best biographies. Congratulations to the authors!

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Award for Autobiography! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/17/2...

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Award for Fiction! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/16/2...

We're excited to announce the longlist for the 2024 NBCC Award for Criticism! Congratulations to all of the nominees. www.bookcritics.org/2024/12/16/2...

At the National Book Critics Circle awards ceremony in March. Today we begin announcing this year's longlists. The superb poetry longlist will be announced on Wednesday, December 18, 2 p.m. ET.

Very very excited to be sharing the excellent books on our NBCC Award longlists! Stay tuned! They drop next week. First time in NBCC history that we are releasing our longlists.

Over the course of the year, I looked through hundreds of poetry books to write my monthly roundups for @literaryhub.bsky.social. It was immensely rewarding and pleasurable and time-consuming. I approached each book I reviewed as a conundrum to be transformed into a reflection of some kernel