National Book Award 2025: Complete list of winners

The National Book Award has long been America’s most prestigious literary honor, and the 2025 winners continue that tradition of recognizing extraordinary work across genres. This year’s poetry winner, Patricia Smith, takes home the award for The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems, a collection that showcases her fierce command of language and her ability to excavate meaning from personal and collective memory. Smith’s win underscores the National Book Award’s commitment to championing poets who write with both technical mastery and emotional urgency, refusing to look away from difficult truths.

What makes the 2025 National Book Award announcement particularly resonant is how this year’s honorees reflect the breadth and vitality of contemporary American letters. The award, administered by the National Book Foundation, remains the gold standard for recognizing literary excellence—a distinction that carries real weight in the publishing world and can reshape a writer’s readership overnight. Smith’s recognition here places her among the most celebrated poets of our time, cementing work that has always demanded to be heard.

Below, you’ll find full details about this year’s National Book Award winners and what their selections reveal about the state of American writing today.

Poetry

• The Intentions of Thunder: New and Selected Poems by Patricia Smith