The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize Turns 20!
Waywiser authors from left to right: Anna Lena Phillips Bell (Might Could), Erica Dawson (Big-Eyed Afraid), Geoffrey Brock (Voices Bright Flags), Austin Allen (Pleasures of the Game), and Julia Thacker (To Wildness).
March 5, 2026
Waywiser Books authors gathered at AWP to host The Anthony Hecht Prize: A Twentieth-Anniversary Reading. During the twenty year celebration, five poets, spanning the two decades of the prize, read from their books and answered questions during a Q&A:
Anna Lena Phillips Bell, Might Could (20th Winner)
Erica Dawson, Big-Eyed Afraid (2nd Winner)
Geoffrey Brock, Voices Bright Flags (9th Winner)
Austin Allen, Pleasures of the Game (11th Winner)
Julia Thacker, To Wildness (19th Winner)
Waywiser fills a vibrant niche in the poetry publishing ecosystem. After launching the Waywiser Press in 2001, publisher Philip Hoy partnered with editor Joseph Harrison in 2005 to found the Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize, hailed as the poetry world’s “new plum.” Since then, Waywiser Press (now Waywiser Books) has run twenty Hecht Prize contests, with winners receiving numerous accolades.
The Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is awarded to a first or second poetry book. It has been judged by such luminaries as Charles Simic, Richard Wilbur, Rosanna Warren, Vijay Seshadri, Linda Gregerson, and Paul Muldoon, it has become one of the premier early-career prizes for poetry in English. Submissions are open in the fall of each year.
