| Year | Prize Amount |
| 2020 | $100,000 |
Nikky Finney was born on the coast of South Carolina in 1957 to a family of politicians and activists. Finney is the author of five poetry collections including, most recently, Love Child’s Hotbed of Occasional Poetry: Poems and Artifacts (Northwestern University Press, 2020) and Head Off & Split (Northwestern University Press, 2011), the winner of the 2011 National Book Award. In 2020, she received the Wallace Stevens Award.