Here's a look at the official cover of the Hecht Prize Anthology, which is due to hit bookstores and be available for online orders as of November 8th.

Info about the anthology is now up on the Waywiser site, including a rundown of all the good folks included in it -- including Craig Arnold, Ken Chen, Erica Dawson, Daniel Groves, Carrie Jerrell, John Surowiecki and D.H. Tracy, just to name a few of the 50 poets featured here. I'm in fine company indeed.

As mentioned below, the anthology offers a nice sneak preview (7 poems!) of Every Possible Blue.

I'm very excited to have my work included in The Hecht Prize Anthology 2005-2009, edited by Joseph Harrison and due out from Waywiser Press in November.

For info on all of Waywiser's fall titles, click here.

The anthology features a generous preview -- seven poems! -- of Every Possible Blue, which was a finalist/semifinalist for the Hecht Prize three times, and will be out from CW Books in May. This book also marks the start of my publishing relationship with Waywiser, since the press will be publishing my third book, This Time Tomorrow -- a finalist for the 2010 Hecht Prize -- in 2013.

I'm pleased to be in the good company of so many fine poets in this anthology -- and hope to actually meet some of them, and have the chance to read together, once the book is out. There's definitely a sense of kinship I feel with many of them, having competed for the prize over several years, and seen them doing the same. One of the less talked about benefits of entering book contests is learning about the work of other poets, whether they're the contest winners or your fellow finalists. It's not as fun as winning the contest, of course, but it widens your readerly sense of the poetry world.