The finalists for the National Book Award were announced today. The list for poetry is a decent mix of well-known names, including Alan Shapiro, and some lesser known names.

Here is the full list for poetry:

David Ferry, Bewilderment: New Poems and Translations(University of Chicago Press)

Cynthia Huntington, Heavenly Bodies (Southern Illinois University Press)

Tim Seibles, Fast Animal (Etruscan Press)

Alan Shapiro, Night of the Republic (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Susan Wheeler, Meme (University of Iowa Press)

For the most part, most of the books on the list come from large indie presses, but there is one smaller press mentioned ,Etruscan Press, which is run through the Graduate Creative Writing program of Wilkes University, where I received my M.F.A. I got to do some work with Etruscan during my last semester, including having the opportunity to make study guides for some of the books. It’s a well-run press with a small, dedicated staff, so kudos to them, and I hope Tim Seibles’ book wins. What’s especially impressive is that this is Etruscan’s third National Book Award nomination. Works by H.L. Hix and William Heyen were nominated in the past.

A full list of the finalists in every genre can be read here.