Genre: Poetry

A Single Object

The Time Is Now
4.11.23

“I love to take an object made all but invisible by its mundanity—an egg-shaped container of pantyhose, a lawn chair turned on its side—and break it open to expose the full dimensions of the human vulnerability it carries,” writes Danielle Blau in her Craft Capsule essay “Somewhere Somebody Is Doing Something Right Now,” in which she explores how she creates characters for her poems. Write a poem that attempts to expose the full dimensions of an object and how it offers a reflection of a person, whether yourself or another character. What is the significance of this object and how does it exemplify human vulnerability?

Clint Smith With Stephen Colbert

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“For me, poetry is the act of paying attention. It pushes me to pay attention to a moment, a feeling, an idea, an image.” Clint Smith speaks about what poetry means to him, the themes in his new collection, Above Ground (Little, Brown, 2023), and reads his poem “All at Once” in this interview on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.

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Poetry
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Clint Smith
Above Ground
Little, Brown
2023
The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
interview

Not That, But This

The Time Is Now
4.4.23

“What I adore is not horses, with their modern / domestic life span of 25 years. What I adore / is a bug that lives only one day,” writes Natalie Shapero in her poem “Not Horses,” published in the November 2013 issue of Poetry magazine. Shapero redirects the reader from horses to the short lifespan of a bug within the first few lines of the poem and in doing so creates a humorous tension between the title and the body of the poem that adds character to the unique speaker. This week write a poem that moves quickly from one subject to the next. Consider how your mind shifts from one thought to another and carry that tone forward into the poem.

An Adventure by Louise Glück

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“It came to me one night as I was falling asleep / that I had finished with those amorous adventures / to which I had long been a slave.” In this video from the 2014 National Book Award finalists reading, Louise Glück reads her poem “An Adventure,” which appears in her National Book Award–winning collection Faithful and Virtuous Night (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014).

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Poetry
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Louise Glück
National Book Award
Faithful and Virtuous Night
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
2014
reading
Nobel laureate

Upcoming Contest Deadlines

G&A: The Contest Blog
3.31.23

Tomorrow may be April Fools’ Day, but these contests with deadlines of April 13, 14, and 15 are no joke! Prizes include five $25,800 fellowships from the Poetry Foundation; $1,500 and publication for a single poem or group of poems, a short story, or an essay; a weeklong residency at an Italian castle for a short fiction writer; and more. All contests offer an award of at least $1,000, and one has no entry fee. Good luck, writers!

Desperate Literature
Short Fiction Prize
A prize of €1,500 (approximately $1,581), a weeklong residency at the Civitella Ranieri Foundation’s castle in the Umbria region of Italy, and publication in Desperate Literature’s prize anthology is given annually for a work of short fiction. Winners will also receive a consultation with literary agent Charlotte Seymour (Johnson & Alcock Literary Agency), an editorial meeting with the Literary Consultancy, and the opportunity to give readings at Desperate Literature in Madrid and Burley Fisher Books in London. Mariana Enríquez, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Tiffany Tsao will judge. Deadline: April 15. Entry fee: €20 (approximately $21) for first entry, €10 (approximately $11) for each additional entry, with a maximum of five entries per person.

Florida Review
Editor’s Prizes
Three prizes of $1,000 each and publication in Florida Review are given annually for a poem or group of poems, a short story, and an essay. The editors will judge. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: April 15. Entry fee: $25, which includes a subscription to Florida Review.

New Ohio Review
Literary Prizes
Three prizes of $1,500 each and publication in New Ohio Review are given annually for a poem or group of poems, a short story, and an essay. All entries are considered for publication. Deadline: April 15. Entry fee: $22, which includes a subscription to New Ohio Review.

Omnidawn Publishing
Single Poem Contest
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a single poem. The winner also receives 10 copies of a letterpress broadside of the winning poem. Nathalie Khankan will judge. Deadline: April 13. Entry fee: $25 ($15 for each additional poem).

Poetry Foundation
Ruth Lilly and Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Poetry Fellowships
Five fellowships of $25,800 each are given annually to U.S. poets between the ages of 21 and 31. Deadline: April 14. Entry fee: none.

Spoon River Poetry Review
Editors’ Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Spoon River Poetry Review, prefaced by a judge’s introduction, is given annually for a single poem. Multilingual submissions accompanied by translations are eligible. Deadline: April 15. Entry fee: $20, which includes a subscription to Spoon River Poetry Review.

University of Arkansas Press
Etel Adnan Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication by University of Arkansas Press is given annually for a first or second poetry collection by a writer of Arab heritage. Series editors Hayan Charara and Fady Joudah will judge. Deadline: April 15. Entry fee: $25.

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.

Colin Channer

Caption: 

“Like most writers, I started out as a reader. Essentially, I’m a fan who became a professional.” Colin Channer speaks about his origins as a writer and how race and ethnicity factor into his practice in this video for Brown University’s Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. Channer is one of the honorees for the 2023 Poets & Writers Barnes & Noble Writers for Writers Award.

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Poetry
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Colin Channer
Brown University
writing practice
interview
2023
Writers for Writers Award

Whiting Award Winners Announced

G&A: The Contest Blog
3.29.23

At a ceremony held this evening at the New-York Historical Society in New York City, the Whiting Foundation announced the ten winners of the 2023 Whiting Awards. The awards, now in their thirty-eighth year, celebrate exceptional emerging literary talent. Each winning writer receives a prize of $50,000 in support of their work.

This year’s winners are poets Tommye Blount and Ama Codjoe; poet and dramatist Emma Wippermann; fiction writers Marcia Douglas, Sidik Fofana, and Carribean Fragoza; nonfiction writers Linda Kinstler and Stephania Taladrid; dramatist Mia Chung; and graphic novelist R. Kikuo Johnson, who is the first graphic novelist to be recognized with the award.

The winners will read together at an event at the Center for Fiction in Brooklyn, New York, on Thursday, March 30 at 6:30PM. The event is free and open to the public and will also be livestreamed.

“Every year we look to the new Whiting Award winners, writing fearlessly at the edge of imagination, to reveal the pathways of our thought and our acts before we know them ourselves,” said the foundation’s director of literary programs Courtney Hodell in a press release. “The prize is meant to create a space of ease in which such transforming work can be made.”

Since its inception in 1985, the Whiting Awards have bestowed a total of $9.5 million on 370 celebrated writers. For many recipients, this financial support enables a “first chance to devote themselves to their own writing, or to take bold new risks in their work.” Previous winners include such luminaries as poets Don Mee Choi, Roger Reeves, and Ocean Vuong; fiction writers Denis Johnson, Ling Ma, Sigrid Nunez, and Colson Whitehead; nonfiction writers Elif Batuman and Jia Tolentino; and playwright Tony Kushner.

There is no application process for the Whiting Awards. Recipients are nominated by a rotating pool of writers, editors, professors, critics, and others working in the literary or dramatic arts. Final selections are made by a panel of “recognized writers, literary scholars, and editors.” The Whiting Foundation’s other initiatives include the Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grants, which support the development of researched nonfiction books and are open for applications through April 25.

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