Genre: Poetry

Upcoming Contest Deadlines


G&A: The Contest Blog
9.10.21

Seize the back-to-school spirit—whether or not you have returned to a classroom this fall—and apply to literary grants and awards. Three of the opportunities below require no entry fee. All offer a cash prize of $1,000 or more and close on September 15 or September 17.

Cave Canem Foundation Toi Derricotte & Cornelius Eady Chapbook Prize: A prize of $1,000 and publication by Jai-Alai Books is given annually for a poetry chapbook by a Black poet. The winner will also give a reading at the O, Miami Poetry Festival in April 2022. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: None.

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Writing Fellowships: Fellowships of approximately $50,000 each are awarded annually to poets, fiction writers, and creative nonfiction writers on the basis of exceptional creative ability. Citizens and permanent residents of the United States and Canada with a significant and appropriate record of publication are eligible. Deadline: September 17. Entry fee: None.

Literary Arts Oregon Literary Fellowships: Fellowships of $3,500 each are given annually to Oregon writers to initiate, develop, or complete literary projects in poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. A Writer of Color Fellowship of $3,500 is also given. Deadline: September 17. Entry fee: None.

The Moth Nature Writing Prize: A prize of €1,000 (approximately $1,191) and publication in the Moth will be given annually for a poem, story, or essay that features “an exploration of the writer’s relationship with the natural world.” The winner also receives a weeklong stay at the Circle of Misse artist’s retreat in Misse, France. Helen Macdonald will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: €15 (approximately $18).

University of Wisconsin Press Brittingham and Felix and Pollak Prizes: Two prizes of $1,500 each and publication by University of Wisconsin Press are given annually for poetry collections. Additional finalists will be published in the press’s Wisconsin Poetry series. Carmen Giménez Smith will judge. Deadline: September 15. Entry fee: $28.

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

Brief But Spectacular: Tongo Eisen-Martin

Caption: 

“To walk down the streets in the Bay Area is really to walk through a dystopia,” says San Francisco poet laureate Tongo Eisen-Martin about the rapid gentrification of his native city as he discusses how poetry serves as a tool for revolution in this installment of PBS NewsHour’s “Brief But Spectacular” series.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Tongo Eisen-Martin
Brief But Spectacular
PBS NewsHour
2020
San Francisco
poet laureate

Homeland

The Time Is Now
9.7.21

“My father was reading War and Peace when he gave me my name. / I was born near Easter, 1966, in Mississippi,” writes Natasha Trethewey in her poem “Miscegenation,” which begins with the story of her parents traveling to Ohio to marry in 1965 when interracial marriage was still illegal in Mississippi. The poem is a ghazal, a form that consists of couplets ending on the same word or phrase. Write a ghazal with your city of origin as the repeating word. Try, as Trethewey does, to weave together various subjects that speak to the time and place of your homeland.

Maria Popova and Patrick Rosal on Biophilic Cities

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In this NEW INC virtual event, Brain Pickings founder Maria Popova speaks with Patrick Rosal about art, cities, and nature and how poetry helps connect people to the natural world. Rosal’s latest collection, The Last Thing: New & Selected Poems (Persea Books, 2021), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.

Genre: 
Poetry
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Patrick Rosal
Maria Popova
Brain Pickings
NEW INC
Page One
September/October 2021
nature writing

Alice Oswald: Interview With Water

Caption: 

“It is a wonderful gift to be able to swim in rivers, especially on bright, clear days like these. You step into an inverted version of the world,” says poet Alice Oswald about the connection between water and grief in this 2020 virtual lecture for the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities. “The water fits around you like a velvet suit, and you float along seemingly decapitated by reflections.”

Genre: 
Poetry
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Alice Oswald
Oxford University
Interview With Water
lecture
2020
grief

Bestiary

The Time Is Now
8.31.21

In her poem “Bestiary of Bad Kisses,” Ashley M. Jones compares bad kisses in the form of a catalog of animals with three sections titled: “The Frog,” “The Anteater,” and “The Bulldog.” The bestiary is a textual compendium of beasts, both real and imaginary, dating back to the Middle Ages that has seen a resurgence in contemporary literature. From Julio Cortázar to Donika Kelly, writers have sought ways to explore the metaphorical and literal resonances of cataloging animals. Write a poem in the form of a bestiary. How can you glean inspiration from myths and real-life stories? What is the relationship between your chosen animals?

The X. J. Kennedy Prize Open for Submissions

G&A: The Contest Blog
8.27.21

Submissions are open for this year’s X. J. Kennedy Prize. Given for a full-length poetry collection, the prize includes publication with Texas Review Press, a $10,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and twenty author copies. Poets at any stage of their career are eligible to submit and the prize is not limited to a particular style or form of poetry.

Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 50 to 100 pages with a $28 entry fee by September 30. Kazim Ali will judge. The winner will be revealed in December. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

The X. J. Kennedy prize was first awarded in 1998 and the most recent winner was Brooke Sahni for her debut collection, Before I Had the Word. The prize’s namesake, X. J. Kennedy, has been widely celebrated for his poetry and books for young readers. Kennedy earned the Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers in 2015 and the Frost Medal from the Poetry Society of America in 2009. In his citation for the Jackson Prize, the judges praised Kennedy for delivering “wit, savagery, and compassion” in his work. In admiration of his characteristic brevity, they added, “The size of his poems is small but their scope is vast.”

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