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
Mitchell S. Jackson Fiction 2016
Major Jackson Poetry 2003
Michael R. Jackson Drama 2019
Tyehimba Jess Poetry 2006

Selected winners

Dennis Nurkse
1990
Staggered Lights
Poems

A man and a woman

are lying together

listening to news of a war.

The radio dial

is the only light in the room.

Casualties are read out.

He thinks, “Those are people

I no longer have to love,”

and he touches her hair

and calls her name

but it sounds strange to her

like a stone left over

from a house already built.

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Michael R. Jackson
2019
A Strange Loop

THOUGHT #3

Tyler Perry knows how to bring everything together wit all the stories? And all the singing? And all the different people talking?

 

THOUGHT #1

And Tyler Perry don’t never forget to bring in the spirit’ch’alities.

 

THOUGHT #2

‘Cause Tyler Perry loves his Mama—

 

THOUGHT #6

And the Lord—

 

THOUGHT #1

So write a nice, clean Tyler Perry-like gospel play for your parents please?

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Dalia Sofer
2007
The Septembers of Shiraz
A Novel

“He says, why should some people live like kings and the rest like rats? And why should the wealthy, enamored with Europe and the West, dictate how the whole country should dress, talk, live? What if we like our chadors and our Koran? What if we want our own mullahs to rule us, not that saint – what’s his name?” She taps her fingers on the dashboard, trying to remember the name. “ Morteza told me he is worshipped in Europe… I know! Saint Laurent, or something like that…”

 

“Yves Saint Laurent?” Farnaz laughs. “He’s not a saint, Habibeh. He’s a designer. That’s just his name.”

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Alison C. Rollins
2026
Black Bell

A Child is Like a Clarinet

for Eliza Harris and Henri Akoka

Similes are dangerous.
To equate a person to

an object, an instrument
no less, is a risk.

A child is like a clarinet.
A mother is like a clarinetist.

Personhood posits
promising possibilities.

Poems are willing to die.
Poems dare, just as Eliza

Harris leaped onto pieces
of ice to cross the frozen

Ohio River with her baby
in her hands. Poems flee,

just as Henri Akoka
jumped onto the top of

a moving train with his
clarinet under his arm.

One of these things
is not like the other.

Can’t you tell? Mouthpiece
from lips, flesh from wood.

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Colson Whitehead
2000
The Intuitionist
A Novel

“You aren’t one of those voodoo inspectors, are you? Don’t need to see anything, you just feel it, right? I heard Jimmy make jokes about you witch doctors.”

 

She says, “Intuitionist.” Lila Mae rubs the ballpoint of the pen to get the ink flowing. The W of her initials belongs to a ghost alphabet.

 

The super grins. “If that’s the game you want to play,” he says, “I guess you got me on the ropes.” There are three twenty-dollar bills in his oily palm. He leans over to Lila Mae and places the money in her breast pocket. Pats it down. “I haven’t ever seen a woman elevator inspector before, let alone a colored one, but I guess they teach you all the same tricks.”

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Jose Rivera
1992
Marisol and Other Plays

ANGEL: Here’s your big chance, baby. What would you like to ask the Angel of the Lord?

 

MARISOL (Energized): Are you real? Are you true? Are you gonna make the Bronx safe for me? Is it true angels’ favorite food is Thousand Island dressing? Is it true your shit smells like mangoes and when you’re drunk you speak Portuguese?

 

ANGEL: Honey, last time I was drunk…

 

          (Marisol gets a sudden, horrifying realization.)

 

MARISOL: Wait a minute – am I dead?

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