Search All Winners

Name Sort descending Genre Year
Virginia Grise Drama 2013
Rinne Groff Drama 2005
Paul Guest Poetry 2007
Stephen Adly Guirgis Drama 2006
Alexis Pauline Gumbs Nonfiction 2022
Danai Gurira Drama 2012
Daniel Hall Poetry 1998
Lisa Halliday Fiction 2017
W. David Hancock Drama 1998
Karen Hao Nonfiction 2026
Kent Haruf Fiction 1986
Michael Haskell Poetry 1999
Ehud Havazelet Fiction 1999
Terrance Hayes Poetry 1999
Alan Heathcock Fiction 2012
Marwa Helal Poetry 2021
Amy Herzog Drama 2011
Emily Hiestand Poetry 1990
Rick Hilles Poetry 2008
Lucas Hnath Drama 2015
Eva Hoffman Nonfiction 1992
Donovan Hohn Nonfiction 2008
John Holman Fiction 1991
Mary Hood Fiction 1994
Jay Hopler Poetry 2009
Michelle Huneven Fiction 2002
Samuel Hunter Drama 2012
Hajar Hussaini Poetry 2026
Ishion Hutchinson Poetry 2013
Naomi Iizuka Drama 1999
James Ijames Drama 2017
Major Jackson Poetry 2003
Michael R. Jackson Drama 2019
Mitchell S. Jackson Fiction 2016
Tyehimba Jess Poetry 2006

Selected winners

Clarence Coo
2017
Beautiful Province (Belle Province)
A Play

MR. GREEN: Two verbs! Granted, they are irregular. But that’s no excuse, for these forms —

 

Do. Not. Change.

 

They are immutable!

 

More reliable than the people in your lives. More stable than governments. More dependable than churches or philosophies. These verbs are your deliverance!

 

Commit these patterns to memory. Determine the person, the number, the tense. Then remember the form. That’s all there is. To conjugation.

 

Conjugation. Such a beautiful word. Such a beautiful act. 

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Frances Ya-Chu Cowhig
2024
Snow in Midsummer
A Play

DOU YI

My hands were packed in dry ice

Flown across the Pacific and

Stitched onto a man who lost his overseas.

My palms open doors to

Rooms my feet haven't walked through and

Caress a woman my eyes will never see.

It doesn't snow there but my

Nails ache when they touch ice and

Scratch strange characters onto that

Soldier's skin while he's sleeping.

His doctors call it post-traumatic stress but

He knows they're words from a

Language his tongue never learned

Justice. 

Justice. 

Justice

Across the East Sea a yam farmer

Uses my corneas to see.

She dreams of snow but thinks

It's ashes from a childhood fire bombing.

On the far side of the Atlantic my stomach digests

Food that never passed through my lips

Food my teeth didn't chew

Food my tongue hasn't tasted

Food that could have made this spirit stronger

And act sooner if someone offered it to Dou Yi.

But my heart--

My heart beats in this town,

Pumping blood through a man

Loved by the son of an official,

A son who moved Heaven and Earth for

His Happiness.

His Future.

His New Harmony.

These offerings have given me strength

I feel my spirit reviving!

Justice. 

Justice. 

Justice.

Justice and burial for the widow Dou Yi

Justice.

Justice.

Justice.

But how can you bury a woman whose butchered body's still living?

Justice. 

Justice.

That is my heart. It should beat inside me.

 

(Dou Yi thrusts her hand into Rocket's chest and retrieves her heart.)

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Tommye Blount
2023
Fantasia for the Man in Blue
Poems

I

 

What a lucky beast I am,

when he cleans up nice

 

and nicks his perfect face.

I get to lick that face,

 

when he lets me.

In the cut’s opening

 

I get a taste of him

from the inside

 

out, which is all I have

ever wanted,

 

to be cell-close

to him. Praise the razor’s

 

overzealous arm;

the ease

 

with which it finds tenderness

in this man.

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Will Arbery
2020
Heroes of the Fourth Turning
A Play

KEVIN
I don’t understand anything you’re saying
 
TERESA
I’m sorry this sucked. Sorry. Sorry. I’ve stopped being able to lie. Don’t tear yourself apart over this. There’s a war coming, dude. 
 
KEVIN
What
 
TERESA
There’s a war coming. And I want you to be on the right side. I want you to be strong enough to fight. Remember your roots. You went to a school where you got wilderness training, where you spoke conversational Latin and locked your phone in a safe for four years and rode horses and built igloos and memorized poems while scaling mountains, and you were strong and you were one of us, and now look at you, you’re a pale American soy boy. 
 
KEVIN
A pale what
 
TERESA
Just make a decision not to be weak anymore, and stick to it.
 

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