Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, specializing in the publication of poetry and located in Port Townsend, Washington. Since 1972, the Press has published poetry exclusively.
Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both revered and emerging American poets, translations of classical and contemporary work from many of the world's cultures, re-issues of out-of-print poetry classics, prose books about poetry, and anthologies.
The press achieved national stature when Copper Canyon poet, W.S. Merwin, won the 2005 National Book Award for Poetry in the same year another Copper Canyon poet, Ted Kooser, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was appointed to a second year as United States Poet Laureate. Merwin later won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and in 2010 was named United States Poet Laureate. Copper Canyon has published more than 400 titles, including works by Nobel Prize Laureates Pablo Neruda, Odysseas Elytis, Octavio Paz, Vicente Aleixandre and Rabindranath Tagore; Pulitzer Prize-winners Ted Kooser, Carolyn Kizer, Maxine Kumin, Theodore Roethke, and W.S. Merwin; National Book Award winners Hayden Carruth, Lucille Clifton, and Ruth Stone; and some contemporary poets and translators such as Jim Harrison, C. D. Wright, Bill Porter (aka Red Pine), Norman Dubie, Eleanor Wilner, Arthur Sze, James Richardson, Tom Hennen and Lucia Perillo.
In 2015, the press published What About This: Collected Poems of Frank Stanford to great critical acclaim. In his New York Times review, Dwight Garner complimented the press for performing a "vital and difficult task" and giving the reader "a chance to see him (Stanford) whole." National Public Radio called the book's release "the big event in poetry for 2015."
Major Prizes
- W.S. Merwin - 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for The Shadow of Sirius
- Ted Kooser - 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for Delights and Shadows
- W.S. Merwin - 2005 National Book Award for Poetry for Migrations: New and Selected Poems
- Ruth Stone - 2002 National Book Award for Poetry for In the Next Galaxy
- Hayden Carruth - 1996 National Book Award for Poetry for Scrambled Egges & Whiskey