Genre: Poetry

Submissions Open for African Poetry Book Fund’s Glenna Luschei Prize

G&A: The Contest Blog
9.16.22

The deadline is approaching for the Glenna Luschei Prize for African Poetry, presented by the African Poetry Book Fund and in partnership with Prairie Schooner. Offered annually for a book of poetry written by an African poet and published during the previous year, the prize awards $1,000. Writers who were born in Africa, who are a national or a resident of an African country, or whose parents are African are eligible. Only collections written in English, including works of translation, will be considered.

Authors and publishers may submit four copies (or unbound proofs) of a poetry collection of at least 48 pages published in 2021 by October 1. There is no entry fee. Gabeba Baderoon will judge. Visit the website for an entry form and complete guidelines.

Established in 2015, this Pan African Poetry Prize, named after the literary philanthropist Glenna Luschei, “is the only one of its kind in the world and aims to honor and promote African poetry.” The winner will be announced in January 2023. Please note that self-published books and books published by the African Poetry Book Fund are ineligible. Recent winners include Mangaliso Buzani (a naked bone), Koleka Putuma (Collective Amnesia), Juliane Okot Bitek (100 Days), and Rethabile Masilo (Waslap). Established in 2015, this Pan African Poetry Prize, named after the literary philanthropist Glenna Luschei, “is the only one of its kind in the world and aims to honor and promote African poetry.” The winner will be announced in January 2023. Please note that self-published books and books published by the African Poetry Book Fund are ineligible. Recent winners include Mangaliso Buzani (a naked bone), Koleka Putuma (Collective Amnesia), Juliane Okot Bitek (100 Days), and Rethabile Masilo (Waslap). 

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The Grants & Awards database includes details about every writing contest that we’ve published in Poets & Writers Magazine during the past year. We carefully review the practices and policies of each contest before including it, making the Grants & Awards database the most trusted resource for legitimate writing contests available anywhere.

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Ocean Vuong on Teaching and Writing

Caption: 

“When I write, I feel much larger than the limits of my body,” says Ocean Vuong, author of Time Is a Mother (Penguin Press, 2022), in this interview with his Danish translator Caspar Eric at the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. “There is a mystery you tap into that is much bigger.”

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Ocean Vuong
Time Is a Mother
Penguin Press
2022
Louisiana Channel
Louisiana Museum of Modern Art
teaching

Find the Music

The Time Is Now
9.13.22

In this week’s installment of our Craft Capsule series, Gregory Orr writes about the use of sounds and sound patterns in poems to produce a textural sonic experience. The essay begins by discussing four lines from Theodore Roethke’s poem “Root Cellar,” which Orr uses to exemplify how sound can “create a dense composition that is the sonic equivalent of intense odors and textures.” This week write a poem that illustrates through sound the smells, noises, and tactile experiences of a place from your childhood. Follow Orr’s advice to find what brings you pleasure in the music of words and use it in your poem.

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
9.9.22

With fall fast approaching, kickstart the new season by submitting to contests with a deadline of September 30. Prizes abound for writers of supernatural fiction, hybrid poetry collections, essays, translations, poems evoking the American South, and more. Awards range from $1,000 to $75,000, and two contests are even free to enter. May the autumnal equinox be in your favor!

Diode Editions
Poetry Book Contest
A prize of $1,500, publication by Diode Editions, and 20 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. The winner will also have select poems from their book published in Diode Poetry Journal. Hybrid words, prose poetry, translations, and collaborative works are eligible. Entry fee: $20.

Dzanc Books
Short Story Collection Prize
A prize of $2,500 and publication by Dzanc Books is given annually for a story collection. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $25.

Ghost Story
Supernatural Fiction Award
A prize of $1,500, publication on the Ghost Story website and in the Ghost Story print anthology series, 21st Century Ghost Stories, is given twice yearly for a short story with a supernatural or magic realism theme. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $20.

Lascaux Review
Prize in Creative Nonfiction
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for an essay. The winner and finalists will also be published on the Lascaux Review website and in the journal’s print annual. Previously published and unpublished essays are eligible. All entries are considered for publication. Entry fee: $15.

New York Public Library
Cullman Center Fellowships
Fifteen fellowships are given annually to artists, academics, and creative writers, including poets, fiction writers, creative nonfiction writers, and translators, whose work will benefit directly from access to the research collections at the New York Public Library. The fellows each receive $75,000, an office at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library’s main branch in the Midtown neighborhood of Manhattan, and full access to the library’s collections from September 2023 through May 2024. Fellows will be required to work on their projects at the Cullman Center for the duration of the fellowship. Writers currently enrolled in a graduate degree-granting program are ineligible. Entry fee: none.

Texas Review Press
X. J. Kennedy Poetry Prize
A prize of $10,000, publication by Texas Review Press, and 20 author copies will be given annually for a poetry collection. Kimiko Hahn will judge. Entry fee: $28.

Texas Review Press
George Garrett Fiction Prize
A prize of $1,000, publication by Texas Review Press, and 20 author copies will be given annually for a short story collection or novel. Vi Khi Nao will judge. Entry fee: $28.

University of Arkansas Press
Miller Williams Poetry Prize
A prize of $5,000 and publication by University of Arkansas Press is given annually for a poetry collection. Patricia Smith will judge. Entry fee: $28.

University of Mississippi
Willie Morris Award for Southern Poetry
A prize of $3,000 is given annually for a single poem that evokes the American South. The winner will also receive an all-expenses-paid trip to Oxford, Mississippi, for the awards ceremony in March 2023. Susan Kinsolving will judge. Entry fee: none. 

Winning Writers
Tom Howard/Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
Two prizes of $3,000 each, two-year gift certificates for membership to the literary database Duotrope, and publication on the Winning Writers website are given annually for a poem in any style and a poem that either rhymes or is written in a traditional style. Soma Mei Sheng Frazier and Michal “MJ” Jones will judge. Entry fee: $20.

Visit the contest websites for complete guidelines, and check out the Grants & Awards database and Submission Calendar for more contests in poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and translation.

Lunch Poems With Yusef Komunyakaa

Caption: 

“To feel signs depends on how & why / the singer’s song puckers the mouth.” Yusef Komunyakaa reads his poem “A World of Daughters,” which appears in his collection Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth: New and Selected Poems, 2001-2021 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2021), among other selections in this 2020 virtual reading for UC Berkeley’s Lunch Poems series.

Genre: 
Poetry
Tags: 
Yusef Komunyakaa
UC Berkeley
Lunch Poems
2020
Everyday Mojo Songs of Earth
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2021

Start With Loss

The Time Is Now
9.6.22

“Start with loss. Lose everything. Then lose it all again,” writes John Murillo in his poem “Variations on a Theme by Elizabeth Bishop,” which appears in his collection Kontemporary Amerikan Poetry (Four Way Books, 2020), in which he directly quotes from and expands upon Elizabeth Bishop’s poem “One Art.” Using his own perspective, Murillo explores the theme of loss and uses intimate life details to make each event feel distinct, sometimes measuring one against the other as Bishop does in her poem. He writes: “Measure a father’s coffin against a cousin’s / crashing T-cells. Kiss your sister through prison glass.” This week, write a poem that directly responds to a favorite poem of yours. Try writing a variation of a line or directly quoting from the poem to get started.

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