J.C. Andrews, a Ph.D. student in the Department of English's Creative Writing program, was named the winner of the 2026 Yale Series of Younger Poets competition. Her creative dissertation, Of an Ilk, will be published by Yale University Press (YUP) in March 2027.
Awarded since 1919, the Yale Series of Younger Poets celebrates the most prominent new American poets by bringing the work of these artists to the attention of the larger public.
“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. Thank you all for believing in my work and for believing in me.”
The manuscript was selected by award-winning poet Monica Youn.
“I'm absolutely exhilarated and truly honored to help bring this fearless, radiant collection to a wider readership," she said. "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.”
Andrews has an interest in poems that work as an un-ing, poems that hold questions as a form of caretaking. Her work can be found in Gulf Coast, The Massachusetts Review, Waxwing, and elsewhere. She is the author of the chapbook Trillion Amber Trumpets (Sibling Rivalry Press).
