Finalists for National Book Critics Circle Award Announced

The 2017 National Book Critics Circle Award Finalists were announced today in New York. We'll take a look at their press release for a little background to the awards, then head right into the poetry finalists:

Today the NBCC announced its 30 finalists in six categories––autobiography, biography, criticism, fiction, nonfiction, and poetry––for the outstanding books of 2017. The winners of three additional prizes (The Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, The John Leonard Prize and Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing) were also announced. The National Book Critics Circle Awards, begun in 1975 and considered among the most prestigious in American letters, are the sole prizes bestowed by a jury of working critics and book-review editors.

The awards will be presented on March 15, 2018 at the New School in New York City.

And now for the finalists in poetry:

Nuar Alsadir, Fourth Person Singular (Oxford University Press)  

James Longenbach, Earthling (W.W. Norton)

Layli Long Soldier, Whereas (Graywolf)

Frank Ormsby, The Darkness of Snow (Wake Forest University Press)

Ana Ristović, Directions for Use (Zephyr Press)

Congratulations to all the finalists in all six categories. Read on here.