Tufts Poetry Award 2025 finalists announced

Tufts Poetry Award 2025 finalists announced

Gregory Pardlo, Romeo Oriogun, and Ariana Benson are among the Tufts Poetry Award 2025 finalists announced on Thursday, January 23, 2025.

The Tufts poetry awards—based at USA-based Claremont Graduate University and given for poetry volumes published in the preceding year—are not only two of the most prestigious prizes a contemporary poet can receive, they also come with hefty purses: $100,000 for the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award and $10,000 for the Kate Tufts Discovery Award. This makes the Kingsley Tufts award the world’s largest monetary prize for a single poetry collection. Since the Kingsley Tuft Discovery Award was awarded in 1993, it has been won by Yusef Komunyakaa while Danez Smith won the Kate Tufts Prize in 1994. Roger Reeves won Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award in 2023 while Jacqui Germain won the Kate Tufts Discovery Award in 2024.

The process for the 2025 award started with the screening committee of poets Jeremy Ra, Ashley Dailey, and Jenny Qi. After they looked through the entries, they shared the stories with the jury of Donika Kelly, Ellen Bass, Tomás Q. Morín, Divya Victor, and Major Jackson. The finalists made public on Thursday include the following writers of African descent;

Kingsley Tufts Award 2025

  • The Collection of Bastards, Romeo Oriogun
  • Spectral Evidence, Gregory Pardlo (Knopf)

Kate Tufts Discovery Award 2025

  • Black Pastoral, Ariana Benson (University of Georgia Press)

Responses


Still can’t believe that my little book is a Kingsley Tufts finalist, but here we are. & it is such a blessing to be in the company of the other amazing poets!

Romeo Oriogun

The winners will be announced on Saturday, February 1, 2025.

Correction: In an earlier version of this post, we mentioned that only Romeo Oriogun was in the award as the news filtered to the internet on Monday, January 20. The full list of finalists was officially announced on Thursday, January 23 which is why there are changes to the earlier text.

The winner will be announced on Saturday, February 1, 2025.

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