Announcing the Finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Poetry!

We’re excited to announce the finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Poetry. The winner will be announced at the 2025 Big Other Book Awards Ceremony, which will be aired virtually (date and time to be announced).

Without further ado, here are the finalists for the 2025 Big Other Book Award for Poetry:

Molly Bendall’s Turncoat (Omnidawn)

Susan Briante’s 13 Questions for the Next Economy (Noemi Press)

Robin Coste Lewis’s Archive of Desire (Knopf)

Elaine Equi’s Out of the Blank (Coffee House Press)

Robert Gibbons’s Anatomy & Geography (Stalking Horse Press)

Daniel Hinds’s New Famous Phrases (Broken Sleep Books)

Pierre Joris’s Poasis II (Wesleyan University Press)

Douglas Kearney’s I Imagine I Been Science Fiction Always (Wave Books)

Arah Ko’s Brine Orchid (YesYes Books)

John Kinsella’s Aporia (Turtle Point Press)

Michael Leong’s Dear Vase Already Shattered Against the Fragile Floor (Black Square Editions)

Heller Levinson’s Crossfall (Black Widow Press)

Erin L. McCoy’s Wrecks (Noemi Press)

Harryette Mullen’s Regaining Unconsciousness (Graywolf)

Mary Newell’s Entwine (BlazeVOX)

Colleen O’Brien’s Reel (CSU Poetry Center)

Elizabeth Robinson’s Vulnerability Index (Curbstone Press)

Jared Singer’s Forgotten Necessities (Button Poetry)

Arthur Sze’s Into the Hush (Copper Canyon Press)

Fargo Nissim Tbakhi’s Terror Counter (Deep Vellum Publishing)

(Image: Roberto Matta’s Untitled (1939))

John Madera is the author of Nervosities (Anti-Oedipus Press, 2024) and Nomad Science (Spuyten Duyvil Press, forthcoming in 2026). His fiction is also published in Conjunctions, Salt Hill, Hobart, The &Now Awards 2: The Best Innovative Writing, and many other journals. His poetry is also published in elimae, Sixth Finch, Contrapuntos, and elsewhere. His criticism is published in American Book Review, Bookforum, The Review of Contemporary Fiction, Rain Taxi: Review of Books, The Believer, The Brooklyn Rail, and many other venues. Recipient of an M.F.A. in Literary Arts from Brown University, two-time New York State Council on the Arts awardee John Madera lives in New York City, where he runs Rhizomatic and manages and edits Big Other.

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