The Editors of The New Criterion are pleased to announce that Peter Vertacnik is the winner of the twenty-third New Criterion Poetry Prize. Mr. Vertacnik will receive $3,000, and his collection The Nature of Things Fragile will be published by Criterion Books in the winter of 2024.

Established in 2000, the New Criterion Poetry Prize is awarded each year to a book-length manuscript of poems that pay close attention to form. This year’s judges were Editor & Publisher Roger Kimball, Poetry Editor Adam Kirsch, and the poet George Bradley. Previous winners of the prize can be found for sale here.

Peter Vertacnik was born in Saginaw, Michigan. He holds degrees in creative writing and English from the University of Florida, Texas Tech University, and Penn State University. His poetry, translations, and criticism have appeared in 32 Poems, Bad Lilies, The Cortland Review, Hampden-Sydney Poetry Review, The Hopkins Review, Literary Matters, The New Criterion, Phoebe, Plume, The Spectator (World), THINK, and Water~Stone Review. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida, where he teaches at the Episcopal School of Jacksonville.  

The submission window for the twenty-fourth New Criterion Poetry Prize will open in the winter of 2024.

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