Keith Waldrop has won the 2009 National Book Award for poetry for his collection Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy. “If transcendental immanence were possible, it would be because Keith Waldrop had invented it,” reads the citation for the award. “He’s the only one who could—and in Transcendental Studies he has.” Waldrop was also nominated for the award in 1968 for his first book, A Windmill Near Calvary. Other nominees included Versed by Rae Armantrout, Open Interval by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon, Or To Begin Again by Anne Lauterbach and Speak Low by Carl Phillips. Judges were Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, A. Van Jordan, Cole Swensen and Kevin Young.