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Award-Winning Poems: Winter 2015-2016
Welcome to my Winter 2015-2016
selection of award-winning poems, highlights from our contest archives,
and the best new resources we've found for writers. These quarterly
specials are included with your free Winning Writers Newsletter
subscription.
In this issue: The conclusion of "The Love
Song of J. Alfred Prufrock", illustrated by Julian Peters.
—Jendi Reiter, Editor
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DYNAMITE
by Anders Carlson-Wee
Winner of the 2015 Frost
Place Chapbook Competition
Entries must be received by January 5
The Frost Place, a literary foundation housed at Robert Frost's New
Hampshire homestead, sponsors this $250 award for a poetry chapbook
manuscript. Winner is published by Bull City Press and invited to read
at the Frost Place Poetry Seminar. In the title poem from Carlson-Wee's
winning collection, two young brothers' rough-housing skirts the edge
between playfulness and violence.
THE TAKE THIS
JOB AND SHOVE IT ODE
by Stephanie Lenox
Winner of the 2015 Colorado
Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: January 14
This open poetry manuscript prize from Colorado State University gives
$2,000 and publication by the Center for Literary Publishing. This
brutally honest poem from Lenox's prizewinning collection The
Business shows how we are alienated by our common struggle
for survival.
REPRODUCTION
by Bonnie Bolling
Winner of the 2015 John
Ciardi Prize for Poetry
Postmark Deadline: January 15
This open poetry manuscript prize gives $1,000 and publication by BkMk
Press at the University of Missouri–Kansas City. Bolling's The
Red Hijab was the most recent winner. In this witty but
serious poem, a pregnant woman reflects that scarcity and competition
attend every miracle of birth.
PINKO
by Kevin Holden
Winner of the 2015 Fence
Modern Poets Series
Entries must be received by February 29 (don't enter before February 1)
This open poetry manuscript prize gives $1,000 and publication by Fence
Books, a press known for experimental and cross-genre work. Holden's Solar
won the most recent contest. This sensual and sinister poem
free-associates on a color that connects memories of pleasure and of
death.
HOMOSEXUAL
INTERRACIAL DATING IN THE SOUTH IN TWO VOICES and other poems
by Rajiv Mohabir
Winner of the 2015 Kundiman
Poetry Prize
Entries must be received by March 15 (don't enter before February 1)
Kundiman, an arts organization for Asian Americans, offers this $1,000
award in conjunction with Tupelo Press, which publishes the winning
poetry manuscript. Contest is open to Asian-American writers at any
stage of their career. Mohabir's The
Cowherd's Son was the most recent winner. This
suite of found poems reshuffles text from a taxidermy manual to explore
the chase and capture, no longer of birds, but of lovers in a perilous
environment.
Want more? We've been selecting
award-winning poems since 2005. Read
them here.
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We are a free online resource
to help you find paying markets for your poetry, fiction, and
nonfiction. Updated daily, we report on editors and publishers who are
actively seeking submissions, pay standard or competitive rates, and do
not charge reading fees. Founded in 2001, WritingCareer.com is edited
by freelance writer Brian Scott (@busyguru).
A few of our special features
include:
1.
Sci-fi/fantasy markets that are
soliciting stories
2.
Anthologists who are seeking
submissions for special themed anthologies
3.
Magazine editors who are
accepting fiction and nonfiction articles for upcoming issues
4.
Literary agents who are seeking
new authors to represent
5.
New book imprints that are
seeking new authors for debut titles
6.
Literary journals with
time-sensitive reading periods that are accepting limited submissions
of poetry and prose
7.
Announcements of new editors at
high-paying magazines and what they are currently seeking from
freelance writers
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"Set in the vast and
sometimes violent landscape of contemporary Brazil, this is a gorgeous
collection of stories—wise, hopeful, and forgiving, but clear-eyed in
its exploration of the toll taken on the human heart by greed, malice,
and the lust for land." —Debra Murphy, Publisher, Idylls Press
"Arthur
Powers is more than a totally captivating, adventurous storyteller. He
is a wonderfully accomplished writer who enriches the reader's
experience of life, and is a mighty skillful reporter who knows the ins
and outs of people and places. While his locations are
often fascinatingly exotic, more importantly his people are always
engagingly real! In short, Powers is in that rare company of authors
who are impossible to put down!" —John Reid,
founder of the Tom Howard/John H. Reid Fiction
& Essay Contest
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Ellen
LaFleche, a judge of the North
Street Book Prize, explores the emotional life of a
semi-cloistered nun in this new chapbook from Tiger's
Eye Press. Sister Beatrice serves on a jury, bakes bread in
the convent kitchen, scatters her mother's ashes in the ocean, and
reflects on her friendship with another nun. Order directly from Ms.
LaFleche for $10 at ElLaFleche@aol.com.
"The
tides of the sacred feminine seek an outlet in the cloistered body of
Sister Beatrice, a working-class mystic. The convent offers both refuge and confinement—the
paradox of a women-ruled society where women must de-sexualize
themselves. The ascetic environment cannot quench the vitality of
Beatrice's imagination, which finds golden-faced gods in copper pans
and lust's soft satisfaction in a raw quahog."
—Jendi Reiter, editor, Winning Writers, and author of Bullies
in Love
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FundsforWriters is a
motivational and informational Friday newsletter devoured by over
30,000 readers. From markets to grants, crowdfunding to publishing, FFW
leads writers to success. Chosen by Writer’s Digest for its 101 Best
Websites for Writers for 15 years. www.fundsforwriters.com
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Deadline January 15, 2016.
Sponsored by Cogswell Polytechnical College. The winner will receive:
·
Publication online and in the
print issue of COG,
as well as a $250 prize
·
Your poetry adapted as an
animated short film, 2D animation, graphic novel, or series of
interpretive illustrations by students in Cogswell's celebrated Digital
Art & Animation program.
Check out the details—including
a link to the full submission guidelines—at www.cogzine.com.
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Deadline: February 1, 2016. The
W.B.
Yeats Society of New York poetry competition is open to
members and nonmembers of any age, from any locality. Alfred
Corn will judge. Submit unpublished poems in English on any
subject. Length limit: 60 lines. First prize $500, second prize
$250. Winners and honorable mentions receive two-year memberships in
the Society and are honored at an event in New York on April 4.
Submit each poem (judged
separately) typed on an 8.5 x 11-inch sheet without author's name.
Attach a 3x5 card with name, address, phone, and email. Entry fee is
$10 for first poem, $8 each additional. Mail to 2016 Poetry
Competition, W.B. Yeats Society of N.Y., National Arts Club, 15
Gramercy Park South, New York, NY 10003. Include SASE to receive the
report. List of winners is posted on YeatsSociety.org
around March 31.
Authors retain copyright, but
grant us the right to publish winning entries. These are the complete
rules. No entry form necessary. We reserve the right to hold late
submissions to the following year. For information on our other
programs, or on membership, visit YeatsSociety.org
or write to us.
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Deadline March 31, 2016.
Sponsored by Cogswell Polytechnical College. The winner will receive:
·
Publication online and in the
print issue of COG,
as well as a $250 prize
·
A blurb about your short story
by Daniel
Handler (AKA Lemony Snicket)
·
Your story adapted as an
animated short film, 2D animation, graphic novel, or series of
interpretive illustrations by students in Cogswell's celebrated Digital
Art & Animation program.
Check out the details—including
a link to the full submission guidelines—at www.cogzine.com.
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Ellaraine Lockie's new chapbook
and twelfth collection, Love Me Tender in Midlife, has
just been released in the chapbook collection IDES
from Silver Birch Press. Love Me Tender in Midlife is
her third chapbook in a series of three about women's midlife years. IDES
is a 288-page book consisting of fifteen chapbooks, all fifteen pages
in length and illustrated with paintings by Amedeo Modigliani.
Silver Birch Press decided to
celebrate the year 2015 by asking 15 poets to each contribute 15 pages
of poetry to a chapbook collection and title it IDES
(released on the ides of October 2015). The result is a diverse mix of
poetry by authors from coast to coast. Contributing poets hail from
California, Florida, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New
York, the Carolinas, and Texas—with one from Canada.
Featured poets include Jeffrey
C. Alfier, Tobi Alfier, Carol Berg, Ana Maria Caballero, Jennifer
Finstrom, Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike, Robin Dawn Hudechek, Sonja
Johanson, Ellaraine Lockie, Daniel McGinn, Robert Okaji, Glenis
Redmond, Daniel Romo, Thomas R. Thomas, and A. Garnett Weiss.
A wonderful
holiday gift, order IDES for
$15 at Amazon.
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Based in New London, CT, Little
Red Tree publishes books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and art that
"delight, entertain, and educate". Visit their website at littleredtree.com.
"An outstanding,
impressive collection from a multiple award winner...The
writing dazzles, surprises, and beguiles the reader with its unexpected
vistas."
—Carol Smallwood, author, Divining the Prime
Meridian (Wordtech Editions, 2015)
"Bitter,
tender, contained, full of pain and hilarity, this fiercely intelligent collection begins with
one of the most beautiful poems I have ever read. 'Inconsolable joy,'
Reiter writes to her newborn son. 'Motherless, I mother.' Within this
grace all questions resolve: 'Each glinting wavelet a day of my
history,/washing my hands as I lose it.' The history to be known and
released includes childhood abuse, and cruelties both familial and
social...In these poems, theology becomes concrete and
passionate."
—Ruth Thompson, author of Woman with Crows
(Saddle Road Press, 2013), A Room of Her Own Foundation "To the
Lighthouse" Prize Finalist
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Here are some of our favorite
newly added resources at Winning Writers. For a full list, see our Resources
pages.
Tu Books
Publisher of diverse middle-grade and YA novels
Writers
of the World
Novelist Warren Adler hosts this forum for inspirational stories about
the writing life
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See our Books
page for all of our recommended poetry, fiction, and
nonfiction books.
 Gabrielle Calvocoressi
APOCALYPTIC
SWING
The jazzy, tough, delicious poems in this collection swing through
highs and lows of sexual awakening, boxing, and religious devotion. Resilience
sings through these anecdotes of bombed black churches and synagogues,
down-and-out factory towns and risky love affairs, with characters who
know that "all you gotta do is get up/one more time than the other
guy thinks you can."
Wendy Waters
CATCH
THE MOON, MARY
Fans of Anne Rice and "The Phantom of the Opera" will enjoy
this paranormal romance/horror novel that asks creative questions about
God, love, and power. The angel Gabriel has tried so long to enlighten
humanity that he has become bitter and violent. He has lost faith in
love, and believes that humanity must be redeemed by force. He rescues
an abused girl who is a musical prodigy, in exchange for a claim on her
talent—but her love and innocent wisdom make him question whether the
end justifies the means.
Leah Horlick
FOR YOUR
OWN GOOD
This breathtaking lesbian-feminist poetry collection breaks the silence
around intimate partner violence in same-sex relationships. Jewish
tradition, nature spirituality, and archetypes from Tarot cards build a
framework for healing. This book is valuable for its specificity about
the dynamics of abusive lesbian partnerships, which may not fit our
popular culture's image of domestic violence. Horlick shows how the
closet and the invisibility of non-physical abuse make it difficult for
these victims to name what is happening to them. The book's narrative
arc is hopeful and empowering.
Margaret
Atwood
MORNING
IN THE BURNED HOUSE
This mature poetry collection considers history and warfare from
women's perspectives. A father's death prompts a more personal turn to
poems exploring memory and loss. The style is straightforward,
declarative, assured. Yet the multi-layered meanings of these poems
complicate our conventional wisdom and lead us into mysteries that can
only be experienced, not mastered, through language.
Jee Leong Koh
THE
PILLOW BOOK
The design of this illustrated Japanese-English edition has a studied
casualness that suits these subtle, charming poems. Koh writes of
male-male eroticism without the gritty explicitness or florid imagery
that often prevail in this genre. Everything is enjoyed in moderation
yet savored to the fullest. Literary sketches of his native Singapore
combine the sensory immediacy of childhood memories with an
expatriate's wry detachment.
Claudia
Rankine, Beth Loffreda, & Max King Cap, eds.
THE
RACIAL IMAGINARY: WRITERS ON RACE IN THE LIFE OF THE MIND
An essential anthology of poetics and politics in the 21st century,
this essay collection from Fence Books grew out of Rankine's "Open
Letter" blog that solicited personal meditations on race and the
creative imagination. Contributors include poets Francisco Aragón, Dan
Beachy-Quick, Jericho Brown, Dawn Lundy Martin, Danielle Pafunda, Evie
Shockley, Ronaldo V. Wilson, and many more, plus contemporary artwork
selected by Max King Cap. The writers span a variety of ethnic
backgrounds, points of view, and aesthetics, united by honest
self-examination and political insightfulness.
Jessamyn Hope
SAFEKEEPING
This many-layered debut novel, set on a kibbutz (Israeli commune) in
1994, brings together an unlikely community of troubled souls whose
fates intersect in surprising ways. At the heart of the story is a
priceless brooch crafted by a medieval Jewish goldsmith, preserved by
his descendants through centuries of anti-Semitic massacres and international
migration. Adam, a drug addict from Manhattan, seeks to atone for the
damage he has done to his family, by bringing the brooch to the
mysterious woman his late grandfather loved when he was a Holocaust
refugee on the kibbutz. His arrival stirs up painful memories for the
kibbutz founder, who sacrificed her personal happiness to a utopian
project that is now in danger of being disbanded. Meanwhile, his fellow
volunteers are on their own desperate quests for redemption and
freedom, which sometimes help and sometimes hinder Adam's mission. The
novel raises profound questions about the trade-offs between individual
fulfillment and collective survival.
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