The University of Arizona Press
January 21, 2026
The National Book Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation today announced with The Associated Press that Ancient Light by Kimberly Blaeser is a 2026 Science +Literature selected title. Ancient Light is a poetry collection that uses lyric, narrative, and concrete poems to give voice to some of the most pressing ecological and social issues of our time. The Science + Literature program identifies three books annually that deepen readers’ understanding of science and technology, across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry.
Blaeser is the author of six poetry collections and served as Wisconsin Poet Laureate from 2015–16. An Anishinaabe activist and environmentalist, Blaeser is an enrolled member of White Earth Nation, an MFA faculty member for Institute of American Indian Arts, and professor emerita at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. She also mentors Indigenous poets through Indigenous Nations Poets (In-Na-Po), an organization she founded in 2020. She
The Foundation’s announcement notes: “This year’s honored titles—all authored by women—include a poetry collection, memoir, and novel preoccupied with the past, present, and future of the natural world. In her latest poetry collection Ancient Light, Kimberly Blaeser reclaims Indigenous stories and knowledge, while reckoning with ongoing environmental destruction and violence against Native communities. Mycologist Patricia Ononiwu Kaishian connects the binary-defying study of eels, slugs, and fungi to her personal identity formation as a queer, neurodivergent scientist in her debut nonfiction book Forest Euphoria: The Abounding Queerness of Nature. In the novel Bog Queen, a forensic anthropologist investigates the discovery of a 2,000-year-old Celtic druid, and author Anna North contends with the history of Celtic Europe alongside the environmental realities of contemporary England.”
Authors receive a $10,000 cash prize, are celebrated at a public ceremony in March, and are featured in associated national public programming. The National Book Foundation ceremony will be held on March 11, 2026, at The Cooper Union in New York City.
Congratulations, Kimberly!
