Andrei Codrescu, Frank Bidart make poetry long-list for National Book Awards

NEW YORK, N.Y. – Andrei Codrescu, already known as a filmmaker, novelist and NPR commentator, is now a National Book Award finalist.

Codrescu’s “So Recently Rent a World: New and Selected Poems: 1968-2012” was among 10 books on the long-list for poetry, the National Book Foundation announced Tuesday. Finalists for young people’s literature were announced Monday, with nonfiction scheduled for Wednesday and fiction for Thursday.

The foundation, which presents the awards, added long-lists this year for each of the four competitive categories in an effort to increase sales and publicity for the nominees. The lists will be narrowed to five in each category on Oct. 16. The winners, each of whom receive $10,000, will be announced at a Nov. 20 ceremony in Manhattan.

Frank Bidart, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2009 and a three-time nominee for the National Book Award, was a poetry finalist for “Metaphysical Dog: Poems.” Others announced Tuesday included Roger Bonair-Agard’s “Bury My Clothes,” Lucie Brock-Broido’s “Stay, Illusion,” Brenda Hillman’s “Seasonal Works With Letters on Fire” and Adrian Matejka’s “The Big Smoke.”

Also nominated were Diane Raptosh’s “American Amnesiac,” Matt Rasmussen’s “Black Aperture,” Martha Ronk’s “Transfer of Qualities” and Mary Szybist’s “Incarnadine: Poems.”