THE TWENTIETH ANNUAL ANTHONY HECHT POETRY PRIZE

JUDGE: SHANE McCRAE

We are pleased to announce that the winner of the twentieth annual Anthony Hecht Poetry Prize is Anna Lena Phillips Bell’s Might Could. This year’s judge, Shane McCrae, announced his decision on March 23rd, and it was relayed to a delighted Anna Lena the next day.

Anna Lena will receive a purse of $3,000, and Might Could will be published by Waywiser and launched at the Folger Shakespeare Library in the spring of 2026, when its author will read back to back with the judge at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC.

310 entries were received for this year’s contest, 17 of which reached the semi-finals, and 9 of which advanced to the finals. Full results will be posted on this website in the very near future, and we hope to include biographical notes for each of the finalists, as well as sample poems from their manuscripts.

We thank everyone who entered, and hope you will consider entering the contest again when the Hecht Prize portal re-opens on September 1st 2025. Please note however, that the portal will be found, not here on the Waywiser Press website but on the site of its successor organization, the US non-profit Waywiser Books, at waywiserbooks.org