Award-Winning Poems 2012
Winter 2012-13
HARVESTING THE CARROTS
by Tom Boswell
Winner of the 2011 Codhill Press Chapbook Award
Postmark Deadline: December 10
This poetry chapbook manuscript prize offers $1,000 and publication by Codhill Press, a small literary publisher that is interested in "the intersection of spiritual, literary, and poetic thought" and books for the "serious seeker". Boswell's Midwestern Heart won the 2011 award. This poem, encompassing the whole arc of a relationship that has ended, ponders the details that a person in love notices, and those that only appear in hindsight.
THEIR VOICES
by Susan Cohen
Winner of the 2011 Anderbo Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: December 15
The well-regarded online literary journal Anderbo.com awards $500 for the best unpublished poem by an author new to the magazine. This meditative poem imagines the voices of the dead lingering in the natural world that the living inhabit.
GORGE
by Natalie Richardson
Winner of the 2012 Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award
Postmark Deadline: December 22
The Poetry Society of America gives this prestigious $250 prize for an unpublished poem by a US high school student. This grotesque, compelling poem expresses a young person's horrified fascination with mortality, as revealed by her grandmother's failing body and neglected apartment.
VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE and other poems
by Elizabeth Willis
Winner of the 2012 PEN New England Awards Honoring Literary Excellence
Postmark Deadline: December 28
Formerly known as the L.L. Winship Awards, this contest gives $1,000 in each genre books of poetry, fiction, and nonfiction published in the US during the current calendar year. Books must have a New England topic or setting, and/or be by a writer whose primary residence is New England. Willis's Address won the poetry category of the 2012 contest (2011 deadline). These many-layered poems imagine the subtexts and stories behind other works of art.
MINNESOTA MULTIPLE PERSONALITY INDICATOR, ET AL.
by Jennifer Key
Winner of the 2012 Tampa Review Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: December 31
This open poetry manuscript prize includes $2,000 plus royalties, hardcover publication by the University of Tampa Press, and selected poems published in Tampa Review. Key's The Old Dominion won the 2012 prize (2011 deadline year). This wry poem takes aim at the absurdity of attempting to describe family dynamics with a true-false psychological test.
HARRY HARLOW IN THE PIT OF DESPAIR
by Nick Lantz
Winner of the 2011 Levis Reading Prize
Entries must be received by January 15
This free contest for a first or second book of poetry published in the previous calendar year awards $2,000 and an expenses-paid reading in Richmond, VA. In this poem from Lantz's prizewinning We Don't Know We Don't Know (Graywolf Press, 2010), reasons for hope arise from everyday moments in nature and the lives of animals. Harry Harlow was an American psychologist who studied affection and attachment through experiments with monkeys.
Fall 2012
STATUARY and other poems
by Katherine Larson
Winner of the 2012 Kate Tufts Discovery Award
Postmark Deadline: September 15
This free contest from Claremont Graduate University awards $10,000 for a first published book of poetry by a US citizen or current resident. Larson's prizewinning Radial Symmetry was previously also a Yale Series of Younger Poets winner. This poem situates the human condition "somewhere between/ the crane & the worm", the mind able to imagine infinity yet anxious about death.
THE SACRIFICE OF ISAAC (UFFIZI)
by Jazzy Danziger
Winner of the 2012 Brittingham Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: September 30
The University of Wisconsin Press sponsors the annual Brittingham and Pollak Poetry Prizes for poetry manuscripts by authors at any stage of their career, with awards of $1,000 and publication. Danziger's Darkroom was the 2012 winner. This poem addresses Caravaggio's painting of the Bible story, challenging our tendency to dwell on the appearance of violence but still look away from its implications.
DÉJÀ VU
by Carmen Giménez Smith
Winner of the 2011 Juniper Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: September 30
This competitive poetry manuscript prize of $1,500 from the University of Massachusetts Press alternates annually between a first-book and a subsequent-book contest. The 2013 award (2012 deadline) is for poets who have already published at least one full-length collection. Smith's Goodbye, Flicker won the most recent subsequent-book prize. In this philosophical poem from her previous collection, Odalisque in Pieces (University of Arizona Press, 2009), the speaker finds that time and winter erase her attempts to make a profound public statement; perhaps that is the statement.
FOR THEY ARE COMING
by Bern Mulvey
Winner of the 2011 Copperdome Poetry Chapbook Award
Postmark Deadline: October 1
This prize includes $300 and publication by Southeast Missouri State University Press. Mulvey's Character Readings won this prize after placing as a finalist in the Tupelo Press Snowbound Chapbook Award. In this spare and elegant poem about a grandfather's death, the angry teenage son is reduced to profanity while his father falls back on concepts that only have names in Japanese, both arriving at the same place where comprehension breaks down.
GNOSTIC FUGUE and other poems
by Traci Brimhall
Winner of the 2011 Barnard College New Women Poets Prize
Postmark Deadline: October 15
Offered in even-numbered years only, this prize for a second book by an American woman includes $1,500 and publication by W.W. Norton & Co. In this selection from Brimhall's prizewinning Our Lady of the Ruins, the saints are creatures of the wilderness, and seekers crave God as an animal hungers for meat.
"EMBRACE THEM ALL"
by Katy Didden
Winner of the 2012 Lena-Miles Wever Todd Poetry Series
Postmark Deadline: November 1
This long-running open poetry manuscript prize for US authors awards $2,000 and publication by Pleiades Press. Didden's Avalanche was the 2012 winner (2011 deadline contest). The speaker of this wry, melancholy lyric regrets the tryst she didn't have in Paris, having learned too late that sometimes a whole-hearted embrace of the moment opens up more possibilities than a belief in future abundance.
Summer 2012
TROUPE SONG
by Emily Rosko
Winner of the 2011 Akron Poetry Prize
Postmark Deadline: June 15
This long-running, competitive award from the University of Akron Press gives $1,500 for a full-length poetry manuscript. Rosko's Prop Rockery won the 2011 prize. This rollicking, sardonic poem shows up the pasteboard quality of artistic constructions, which we nonetheless take pleasure in believing.
LOVE POEM! #2 and others
by Frank Montesonti
Winner of the 2011 Barrow Street Press Book Contest
Postmark Deadline: June 30
This prestigious $1,000 award for poetry manuscripts is friendly to experimental work. Montesonti's Blight, Blight, Blight, Ray of Hope was the 2011 winner. In this self-parodying love poem, the speaker's indiscriminate enthusiasm ricochets between his beloved and the many banal distractions of his environment.
THE SIRENS
by Tyler Mills
Winner of the 2011 Crab Orchard Series in Poetry - First Book Award
Postmark Deadline: July 7
This competitive poetry manuscript award for first books by US citizens or permanent residents includes $3,500 and a reading at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. Mills's collection Tongue Lyre won the 2011 prize. This lyric meditation begins with the image of beached whales and opens out into other scenes of the primal allure of danger.
PENIS FENCING
by Kelli Anne Noftle
Winner of the 2010 Omnidawn First or Second Poetry Book Contest
Postmark Deadline: July 16
Publisher of innovative poetry and literary fiction awards $3,000 and publication for a first or second full-length poetry book. Noftle's I Was There For Your Somniloquy won the 2010 prize. This wry poem uses a quirk of worm biology as a metaphor for lovers' struggle for dominance.
NO FINAL CURTAIN
by Willa Carroll
Winner of the 2011 Narrative Magazine Annual Poetry Contest
Entries must be received by July 17
This prominent online journal gives prizes up to $1,500 for unpublished poems of any length. Carroll's winning poem describes the brief glory and risks of daring to dance in the spotlight, both literally and as metaphor.
UGANDA, 1997
by Shane Book
Winner of the 2011 GLCA New Writers Awards for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: July 25
Sponsored by the Great Lakes Colleges Association, this free contest for a first book of poetry, fiction, or creative nonfiction published in the previous calendar year in the US or Canada includes $500 honorarium plus reading tour of 12 midwestern colleges. Shane Book's Ceiling of Sticks won the 2011 poetry category; the book previously won the 2009 Prairie Schooner Book Prize and was published by the University of Nebraska Press. This brief, devastating poem depicts a scene from the Ugandan civil war, where children were both victims and perpetrators of atrocities.
Spring 2012
HOW TO HAND SCISSORS OR KNIVES TO SOMEONE YOU LIKE
by James D'Agostino
Winner of the 2011 New Michigan Press/Diagram Chapbook Contest
Postmark Deadline: March 30
New Michigan Press, publisher of the quirky multimedia online journal Diagram, awards $1,000 and publication for a chapbook of poetry, prose, or mixed-genre work. This selection from D'Agostino's prizewinning Slur Oeuvre celebrates the hope of intimate connection despite the inherent risks: "Let the let down now/let down their guard again."
VIRGINITIPHOBIA
by Patrick Ryan Frank
Winner of the 2010 Four Way Books Intro Prize in Poetry
Postmark Deadline: March 31
This prestigious first-book contest for poetry manuscripts is held in even-numbered years, alternating with the Levis Poetry Prize for subsequent books. Award is $1,000 and publication. Frank's collection How the Losers Love What's Lost was the most recent winner. This unsettling poem imagines a rape with the power dynamics reversed, perhaps as a self-protective fantasy for the victimized woman.
THE RIVER
by Bonnie Bolling
Winner of the 2011 Liam Rector First Book Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: March 31
This contest awards $1,000 and publication by Briery Creek Press. In this selection from Bolling's prizewinning In the Kingdom of the Sons, young girls skinny-dipping feel a nameless longing that can't be satisfied by the drab, proper lives that their mothers model for them.
POEM FOR THE ADOPTIVE MOTHER
by Amanda Auchter
Winner of the 2010 Zone 3 Press First Book Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: May 1
Offered in even-numbered years by the well-regarded journal Zone 3, this contest for a first full-length collection awards $1,000, publication, and a reading at Austin Peay State University. Auchter's The Glass Crib won the 2010 prize. In this poignant poem, the speaker imagines the first encounter between her infant self and her adoptive mother.
ENDOWMENTS
by Terry Jones
Winner of the 2011 Bridport Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: May 31
This high-profile competition from a British arts center awards prizes up to 5,000 pounds for poetry and fiction. In his winning poem, Jones imagines a time when he and his wife are ghosts and their familiar landmarks have crumbled to dust, but certain prosaic features of modern life may outlive them all.
