New Measure Poetry Prize Winner 2025
Kathleen Rooney, O Western Wind [Selected by Rodney Jones]
Allen Ginsberg called “Westron Wynde” “maybe the greatest poem in the English language.” With humor, heart, and hybridity, Kathleen Rooney’s O Western Wind takes each word of that anonymous sixteenth-century work and pushes it to its surprising, funny, and reflective limits. Winner of the XJ Kennedy Prize for her poetry collection Where Are the Snows, Rooney is the author of five novels, including the forthcoming Man Overboard! and co-author—with her sister Beth Rooney—of the picture book Leaf Town Forever. She lives in Chicago.
Free Verse Editions 2026
Baba Badji, The Ghosts of Tirailleurs
The Ghosts of Tirailleurs examines the memories of war and trauma among Senegalese riflemen (Tirailleurs sénégalais) who served France during World Wars I and II. It also uncovers the silent history of child protesters killed during Senegal’s 2021 political repression. The book probes themes such as unresolved trauma, justice, homeland, heritage, political violence, and the intricate historical ties within the Black diaspora, linking the stories of the death of the tirailleurs and the death of the protestors. It highlights an often-overlooked aspect of French colonial history and challenges official narratives. Baba Badji is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers University in New Brunswick in the Departments of French and English. His first collection, Ghost Letters, was longlisted for the National Book Award in 2021.
Kylan Rice, Cloud on Page Opposite
The poems in this book are like sketches of clouds in a diary. They stabilize in pencil what constantly changes: the mind, the soul, the centerless self. Cloud on Page Opposite is the record of a year of learning how to stay, how to belong to a place and another person. Guided by Gerard Manley Hopkins through rural mid-Missouri, these poems take the back roads home. In returning, they arrive for the very first time. Kylan Rice is the author of two other collections: An Image Not a Book (2024) and Name & Earth (2026). He teaches at Utah State University.
Claire McQuerry, Through Glass Rooms
Through Glass Rooms follows the speaker over the course of a difficult marriage and its end. In these poems the familiar and domestic take on a sinister edge, reflecting the increasing instability of the speaker’s situation. At times drawing on the language of fairytale, the collection interrogates cultural myths about love and marriage. Claire McQuerry’s poetry collection Lacemakers (SIU Press) won the Crab Orchard First Book Prize, and her co-translation of Virginie Lalucq’s Cutting the Stems (Saturnalia) won the Malinda Markham Translation Award. Her poetry has appeared in The Cincinnati Review, Image, The Sun Magazine, Memorious, and other journals.
Ashley Seitz Kramer, Proxemics
Proxemics explores how we see and understand ourselves, each other, and the world amid grief, anxiety, loss, awe, and connection. Ashley Seitz Kramer lives in Salt Lake City and holds an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts and a PhD from the University of Utah. Her first book, Museum of Distance, won the Zone 3 Press First Book Award.
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