The Same Man by Bobby Elliott won the $5,000 Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize, which was selected by this year's judge, Nate Marshall. The collection will be published by the University of Pittsburgh Press as part of the Pitt Poetry Series on September 9, 2025.
"Bobby Elliott's The Same Man confronts the subject of fatherhood with an honesty and tenderness rarely accorded to the typical secondary parent. In these poems, we see a pair of imperfect men reach toward each other and, indeed, toward the work of both fathering and being fathered," Marshall said. "These are the kinds of poems that truly ring of a journey toward healing and forgiveness--but not the saccharine healing we see in media that demands succinct, neat endings. These poems sing of real human healing, which is a messed up and often incomplete process, but is perhaps the holiest one we can submit to in our lives. Elliott is a bard of the familial experience. These are poems to hold tight."