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Frank Bidart Wins Pulitzer Prize for Poetry

Credit Allegra Boverman for NHPR
Poet Frank Bidart during a reading Nov. 28, 2017 at the Capitol Center for the Arts in Concord, N.H.

Frank Bidart, who was in New Hampshire in November to accept the 2017 Hall-Kenyon Prize in American Poetry, has won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry for his "Half-light: Collected Poems 1965-2016."

The Pulitzer committee judges wrote of Bidart's book of poems: "A volume of unyielding ambition and remarkable scope that mixes long dramatic poems with short elliptical lyrics, building on classical mythology and reinventing forms of desires that defy societal norms."

Bidart spoke at the Capitol Center for the Arts on Nov. 28, after he received the Hall-Kenyon Prize presented by NHPR. The poetry prize is named in honor of former U.S. Poet Laureate Donald Hall, and former New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jane Kenyon, his late wife.

Bidart was interviewed at the reading by Virginia Prescott, host of Word of Mouth, which dedicated a segment to the conversation and his ground-breaking book of poetry.

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