JC Andrews, a poet from Springfield, Arkansas, has been named winner of the 2026 Yale Younger Poets award, a prestigious competition that aims to bring greater attention to America's most promising new poets.
Andrews' winning manuscript, "Of an Ilk," which was selected by the award-winning and critically acclaimed poet Monica Youn, will be published by the Yale University Press in March 2027.
Presented by the Yale Press since 1919, the Yale Series of Younger Poets prize is America's longest-running poetry award. The selection of Andrews for this year's prize is the first by Youn, who succeeds Rae Armantrout.
Andrews is a student and teacher at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the author of the chapbook "Trillion Amber Trumpets" (Sibling Rivalry Press). Her work can be found in Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere.
"I'm absolutely exhilarated and truly honored to help bring this fearless, radiant collection to a wider readership," said Youn of Andrews' selection. "These poems slice effortlessly through the grim malignancies of our present moment, carving out new forms and opening up new spaces for love and survival."
"I feel plain and immense gratitude that my book will live among so many of the books I have leaned on throughout my life in the Yale Series of Younger Poets," Andrews said.
"It is such a gift to have these poems, poems I have built with the people I love most in the world, be seen and cared for in this way," she said. "Thank you all for believing in my work and for believing in me."
Previous winners of the Yale Younger Poets award include such noted poets as Adrienne Rich, John Ashbery, and Robert Haas. Honorees also receive a writing fellowship offered at the James Merrill House in Stonington, Connecticut. The fellowship provides a furnished living space and daily access to the late poet James Merrill's apartment, allowing the writers a quiet setting to complete projects of literary or academic merit.
The publication of Andrews' book will be the 121st volume in the series. The latest volume, Isabel Neal's "Thrown Voice," recipient of the 2025 Yale Younger Poets award, was published last month.
