Writing alum Adam O. Davis '06 has won the 2025 Raz/Schumaker Poetry Prize from Prairie Schooner for his second book of poems, Pyrrhic Symphony.
Guest judge Rowan Ricardo Phillips applauded the collection as "wild, whip-smart, and irreverent—a maximalist elegy for late capitalism and ecological disaster, set to a beat both comic and catastrophic." The prize includes a $3,000 award and publication by University of Nebraska Press in 2026.
"I'm beyond delighted," said Davis. "The poems in Pyrrhic Symphony were written from a place of witness, not only for a difficult time in my life but for the larger environmental, political, and viral challenges our society and planet have faced over the past five years. Because the book was written in isolation, it's incredibly heartening to know that it will find its way to a broader audience—the belief of the prize's judges renews my own."
Adam O. Davis is the author of Index of Haunted Houses (Sarabande, 2020), winner of the Kathryn A. Morton Poetry Prize. He is the recipient of the 2022 Poetry International Prize and the 2016 George Bogin Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and he has received grants and fellowships from Columbia University, the New Literary Project, the Prague Summer Program for Writers, and the Vermont Studio Center. His work has appeared in AGNI, The Believer, The Kenyon Review, The Paris Review, and ZYZZYVA, among other journals, and in a number of anthologies, including The Best American Poetry and The Once and Future Lake: Stories for Great Salt Lake. Davis is also co-creator and host of the podcast Poetry Goes to the Movies, along with its digital collection for the Poetry Foundation. He lives in San Diego where he teaches English literature at The Bishop’s School.
