THE 2025 PATERSON POETRY PRIZE WINNERS
Joan Kwon Glass, Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms (Perugia Press, Florence, MA)
“Daughter of Three Gone Kingdoms by Joan Kwon Glass is a gripping book of poems that vibrates with honesty and fear, loss and survival. It is the story of connection to our ancestors and lack of connection, the way sometimes the people who raise us are not the people who love us. A wonderful, wonderful book.”
Nancy Miller Gomez, Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books, Portland, OR)
“Inconsolable Objects by Nancy Miller Gomez is a ferocious book; a kind of muscular use of language in the search for strength and for survival. It truly changed me. I think it would change every reader. Who could not be touched and moved by the powerful poems of this poet who refuses to give up or give in?”
— Maria Mazziotti Gillan, American Book Award winner
FINALISTS
Jive Poetic, Skip Tracer (Liveright Publishing Co., New York, NY)
Tanya Olson, Born Backwards (YesYes Books, Portland, OR)
Donna Prinzmetal, Each Unkept Secret (Moonpath Press, New Port, OR)
Jim Reese, Dancing Room Only (NYQ Books, Beacon, NY)
Nikki Wallschlaeger, Hold Your Own (Copper Canyon Press, Port Townsend, WA)
The Paterson Poetry Prize of $2,000 is given annually by the Poetry Center to a book of poetry (48 pages or more) published in the previous year.
The 2026 submission deadline is February 7, 2026.