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All week, the National Book Awards will be releasing its longlists of honorees: each day, a new genre. The finalists will be announced Oct. 13, and the winners will be named on Nov. 16.

Today the organization unveiled the contenders for the poetry prize. Notably, Minneapolis-based publisher Graywolf Press has three collections in the running. No other press has more than one.

2016 National Book Awards longlist for young people's literature

 "The Performance of Becoming Human" by Daniel Borzutzky

 "Collected Poems 1974 - 2004" by Rita Dove

Rita Dove is as decorated a poet as you will find on any shelf. The former U.S. poet laureate has a Pulitzer and National Medal of Art to her name. This collection spans 30 years and seven books of poetry, and ranges from the pains of adolescence to the reinvention of a Greek myth.

 "The Selected Poems of Donald Hall" by Donald Hall

The work of Donald Hall, another former U.S. poet laureate, is showcased in a collection handpicked by Hall himself. Now in his 80s and no longer writing, he instead turned to his archives to compile this new book.

 "The Abridged History of Rainfall" by Jay Hopler

"Blue Laws: Selected and Uncollected Poems, 1995 - 2015" by Kevin Young

This compilation includes not just highlights of Kevin Young's long career, but also previously unpublished pieces — "B sides" and "bonus tracks," as the publisher, Knopf, promises. The wide-ranging poems address "family, Southern food, and loss," to name just a few topics Young investigates.

Arts and Culture

The Thread® - Books and Literary News

Tracy Mumford

Author

This year's poetry contenders include both debut writers and former U.S. poets laureate.

2016 National Book Awards: Poetry

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