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Author, lyricist, and former New York City youth poet laureate Ramya Ramana discusses and reads a piece about forgiveness in this video for PBS Newshour’s “Brief But Spectacular” series. “Forgiveness is a doorway. A garden of curses spill from her lips and the city inside me crumbles. I tell myself, all poison has once been poisoned too,” reads Ramana.
“Erasure poetry is a reconsideration of an existing text. There was something very satisfying about “reconsidering” The Ferguson Report—striking through whole sections of it, as if undoing the harm that had been done,” says Nicole Sealey in our online exclusive interview about her new book, The Ferguson Report: An Erasure, published by Knopf in August. In the interview, the poet discusses both the difficulty of “prying lyric from a lyric-less document” and how erasure provided access to the words she may not have found on her own. This week, find a seemingly lyric-less document and consider the words that lure you in. Try writing your own erasure poem, rubbing out words for your response to the text. For further inspiration, see this poem from Sealey’s new book.
Debut poets, you’ve got a week left to submit to one of the nation’s most prestigious prizes: the First Book Award from the Academy of American Poets. The winner receives $5,000, publication by Graywolf Press, and a six-week all-expenses-paid residency at the Civitella Ranieri Center in Umbria, Italy. The winning book will also be distributed to over 5,000 members of the Academy of American Poets.
Using only the online submission system, submit a manuscript of 48 to 100 pages with a $35 entry fee by September 1. Victoria Chang will judge. Visit the website for complete guidelines.
Founded in 1975, and known until 2020 as the Walt Whitman Award, the prize was created to support first-time poets and the publication of their books. Past winners of the prize include Threa Almontaser, Jenny Xie, Mai Der Vang, Sjohnna McCray, Matt Rasmussen, and Jan Heller Levi. The prize is supported by financial contributions from the members of the Academy of American Poets.
The epithalamium, a lyric written and performed for a couple at their wedding ceremony, originated in ancient Greece with the earliest evidence of the form found in the fragments from Sappho’s seventh book in 600 BC. The form remains popular in contemporary poetry with traditional and nontraditional examples such as Jason Schneiderman’s “Stories About Love / Wedding Poem for Ada & Lucas” and poems by Alexandria Hall and Phillip B. Williams. This week, write your own version of an epithalamium. Whether it be for the future wedding of a loving couple you know or one that reflects on the institution of marriage, share your take on the ancient form.
“Don’t trap yourself into false models of production and worth.” —Edgar Kunz, author of Fixer
Don’t let August slip past you: Submit to one or more of a dozen writing contests with a deadline of August 30 or August 31. Prizes include $3,000 and publication for a book of poetry; $1,000 and publication for a debut collection of poems, short stories, or essays; $1,000 and publication for a book of poetry by a writer over the age of 60; and more than $1,000, publication, and accommodations to give a reading at the Cork International Poetry Festival in Ireland for a poetry chapbook. All contests offer an award of $1,000 or more, and one has no entry fee. We wish you luck!
Aesthetica
Creative Writing Award
Two prizes of £2,500 (approximately $3,121) each and publication in Aesthetica Creative Writing Annual are given annually for a poem and a short story. In addition, the winner in poetry receives a membership to the Poetry Society in London, a six-week writing course from Curtis Brown Creative (a writing school led by authors and literary agents), a course from the arts organization Poetry School, and a subscription to Poetry London. The winner in short fiction receives a six-week writing course from Curtis Brown Creative and a consultation with the literary agency Redhammer Management. Both winners receive subscriptions to literary magazines Granta and Mslexia, as well as a five-day course from the London-based creative writing nonprofit Arvon. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $15.
Anthology Magazine
Short Story Competition
A prize of €1,000 (approximately $1,099) and publication in, plus a subscription to, Anthology Magazine will be given annually for a short story. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $20.
Black Lawrence Press
St. Lawrence Book Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Black Lawrence Press is given annually for a debut collection of poems, short stories, or essays. The editors and a panel of previous St. Lawrence Book Award winners will judge. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $28.
Grid Books
Off the Grid Poetry Prize
A prize of $1,000 and publication in print and audio formats by Grid Books is given annually for a poetry collection by a writer over the age of 60. Marianne Boruch will judge. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $25.
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. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $7.
Gulf Coast
Barthelme Prize for Short Prose
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gulf Coast is given annually for a short work of prose. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $26.
Gulf Coast
Prize in Translation
A prize of $1,000 and publication in Gulf Coast is given in alternating years for a group of poems or a prose excerpt translated from any language into English. The 2023 prize will be given for a work of prose. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $13.
Journal of Experimental Fiction
Kenneth Patchen Award
A prize of $1,000 and publication by Journal of Experimental Fiction and JEF Books is given annually for an innovative novel. Carla M. Wilson will judge. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $25.
Munster Literature Centre
Fool for Poetry International Chapbook Competition
A prize of €1,000 (approximately $1,099); publication by Southword Editions, Munster Literature Centre’s publishing imprint; and 25 author copies is given annually for a poetry chapbook. The winner will also receive accommodations to give a reading at the Cork International Poetry Festival in 2024. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $27.
Omnidawn Publishing
Open Book Poetry Contest
A prize of $3,000, publication by Omnidawn Publishing, and 20 author copies is given annually for a poetry collection. Maw Shein Win will judge. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: $35.
Talking Gourds
Fischer Prize
A prize of $1,000 is given annually for a single poem. The winner will also be invited to be a featured reader for a Bardic Trails online reading in 2024 and will receive a $100 honorarium for participating. Deborah Kay Kelly will judge. Deadline: August 30. Entry fee: $10.
Utica University
Eugene Paul Nassar Poetry Prize
A prize of $2,000 is given annually for a poetry collection published during the current year by a resident of upstate New York. The winner will also give a reading and teach a master class at Utica University in April 2024. Deadline: August 31. Entry fee: None.
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.
“This whole place has always meant, to me, that this work does have some consequence and meaning in the world.” In this video, Sally Wen Mao speaks about her research at the New York Public Library during her Cullman Center fellowship, including discovering a first edition of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass, which inspired her poetry collection The Kingdom of Surfaces (Graywolf Press, 2023). Mao’s collection is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
A look at three new anthologies, including Leaning Toward Light: Poems for Gardens & the Hands That Tend Them and Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology.
In this 2009 reading filmed at the Dodge Poetry Festival, Jane Hirshfield reads her poem “For What Binds Us,” which is included in her latest collection, The Asking: New and Selected Poems, forthcoming in September from Knopf. A profile of Hirshfield by Danusha Laméris is featured in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The new editor of the Princeton Series of Contemporary Poets discusses the power of the written word, the importance of university presses, and his plans to leave no manuscript unturned.
