Archive August 2018

The Academy of American Poets has announced that Sonia Sanchez has received the 2018 Wallace Stevens Award, which is given annually to “recognize outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.” Sanchez will receive $100,000.

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“Sonia Sanchez is our peerless griot of American poetry,” says Terrance Hayes, a chancellor of the Academy. “There is no poet like her in the whole motley canon. There may have never been a more appropriate recipient of an award honoring poetic mastery and originality.” Sanchez, who was chosen by the chancellors of the Academy, has written more than a dozen poetry collections that address ideas of womanhood, black culture, and more. Her most recent collection is Morning Haiku (Beacon Press, 2010).

The Academy announced all of the winners of the 2018 American Poets Prizes today, including Sanchez. Martín Espada has won the $25,000 Academy of American Poets Fellowship, which recognizes “distinguished poetic achievement” and includes a residency at the Eliot summer home in Gloucester, Massachusetts. “Martín Espada is a poet of musical richness, passion, high and low comedy, imagistic vibrance, wild metaphor, and storytelling skill, with a sense of history,” says chancellor Alicia Ostriker. “He is a celebrant of love and a persistent troubler of the waters. As a ‘people’s poet’ he has been called North America’s Neruda.”

Craig Morgan Teicher received the $25,000 Lenore Marshall Poetry Prize for his collection The Trembling Answers (BOA Editions, 2017); the annual award is given for the best book of poetry published in the United States during the previous year. Laura Kasischke, Campbell McGrath, and Mary Szybist judged. “The Trembling Answers is a collection as ecstatic as it is solemn, and what this poetry shares with us about love, faith, doubt, and poetry itself is essential,” says Szybist.

Geffrey Davis has won the James Laughlin Award for his collection Night Angler (BOA Editions, 2019). The $5,000 award, which includes a weeklong residency at the Betsy Hotel in Miami, is given annually for a second book of poetry forthcoming in the next calendar year.

Raquel Salas Rivera won the $1,000 Ambroggio Prize for the collection x/ex/exis (poemas para la nación) (poems for the nation), and David Larsen won the $1,000 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award for his translation of Ibn Khālawayh’s Names of the Lion (Wave Books, 2017). Anthony Molino won the $10,000 Raiziss/De Palchi Book Prize for his translation of Paolo Febbraro’s The Diary of Kaspar Hauser (Negative Capability Press, 2017).

Read more about the winners on the Academy of American Poets website.

Submissions are currently open for the Omnidawn Single Poem Broadside Poetry Contest, given for a single poem. The winner receives $1,000 and publication in OmniVerse, Omnidawn Publishing’s online journal. The winner also receives fifty copies of a letterpress broadside of the winning poem. Dean Rader will judge.

Submit a poem of 8 to 24 lines with a $10 entry fee ($5 for each additional poem) by August 20. Writers may submit using the online submission system or via post to Omnidawn Publishing, 1632 Elm Avenue, Richmond, CA 94805.  The winner will be announced in December and published in April 2019. Visit the website for complete guidelines.

Previous winners include Beatrice Szymkowiak for her poem “Yangtze Baiji Expedition Log” and Anca Roncea for her poem “Turns.”

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Judge Dean Rader is the author of two poetry collections, most recently Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry (Copper Canyon Press, 2017), and the chapbook, Landscape Portrait Figure Form (Omnidawn, 2013). He is also the coeditor of the anthologies Speak to Me Words: Essays on Contemporary American Indian Poetry (University of Arizona Press, 2003) and Bullets Into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon Press, 2017), as well as the editor of 99 Poems for the 99 Percent: An Anthology of Poetry (99: The Press, 2014).

Established in 2001, Omnidawn Publishing publishes poetry and prose that seeks to “open readers anew to the myriad ways that language may bring new light, insight, awareness, as well as a heightened respect for and appreciation of differences.” The press has published poets Rosmarie Waldrop, Lyn Hejinian, Craig Santos Perez, and among others. 

Fiction writers, are you looking for places to submit your short stories and flash fiction pieces this month? Look no further: The following contests each offer a prize of at least $1,000 and publication. The deadlines are either August 26 or August 31.

TulipTree Publishing Stories That Need to Be Told Contest: A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a short story. The winning work will also be published in the contest anthology, Stories That Need to Be Told. Entry fee: $20. Deadline: August 26.

Aesthetica Creative Writing Award: A prize of £1,000 (approximately $1,290) and publication in the Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual is given annually for a short story. The winner also receives a consultation with the literary agency Redhammer Management, a subscription to Granta, and a selection of books from Bloodaxe Books and Vintage Books. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $15. Deadline: August 31.

Gemini Magazine Flash Fiction Contest: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gemini Magazine is given annually for a short short story. The editors will judge. Entry fee: $5. Deadline: August 31.

Glimmer Train Press Fiction Open: A prize of $3,000 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories is given twice yearly for a short story. A second-place prize of $1,000 is also given. Entry fee: $21. Deadline: August 31.

Glimmer Train Press Very Short Fiction Award: A prize of $2,000 and publication in Glimmer Train Stories is given twice yearly for a short short story. Entry fee: $16. Deadline: August 31.

Gulf Coast Barthelme Prize for Short Prose: A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gulf Coast is given annually for a short short story. Entry fee: $18. Deadline: August 31.

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.

Submissions are currently open for the 2018 Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize. An award of $1,000 and publication in Red Wheelbarrow will be given annually for a poem. The winner will also receive a letterpress broadside of the winning poem from Moving Parts Press. Award-winning poet Naomi Shihab Nye will judge.

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Using the online submission system, submit up to 3 poems of no more than one page each with a $15 entry fee by August 15.  

Judge Naomi Shihab Nye, whose most recent collection is Transfer: Poems (BOA Editions, 2011), is the author of ten volumes of poetry, as well as several fiction books for children, musical recordings, and poetry translations. Nye’s numerous accolades include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Academy of American Poets Lavan Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize.

The Red Wheelbarrow Poetry Prize was established in 2017 by Red Wheelbarrow, the literary magazine published by De Anza College in Cupertino, California, and the Poetry Center San José. Poet Ellen Bass judged the inaugural contest; The winner was Partridge Boswell for her poem “Pop a Wheelie.” Visit the Red Wheelbarrow website for more information.

(Photo: Naomi Shihab Nye; Credit: Ha Lam)