2019 International Poetry Contest Winner Announced!

Photo credit: Ellie Honl

We are so excited to share that this year’s winner our annual International Poetry Contest is Kurt Luchs, for his poem “Suzie.”

This year’s judge was Dan Vera.

Kurt wins the $1000 prize, and his poem, along with the wonderful poems by the other Finalists, will appear in the fall issue.  Congratulations to Kurt and to all of the Finalists!  You make Atlanta Review awesome!

Kurt Luchs has poems published or forthcoming in Into the Void, Right Hand Pointing, and The Sun Magazine. He won the 2017 Bermuda Triangle Poetry Prize, and was the First Runner-Up for the 2019 Fischer Poetry Prize. He has written humor for the New Yorker, the Onion, and McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, as well as writing comedy for television and radio. His books include a humor collection, It’s Funny Until Someone Loses an Eye (Then It’s Really Funny) (2017 Sagging Meniscus Press), and a poetry chapbook, One of These Things Is Not Like the Other (2019 Finishing Line Press). More of his work, both poetry and humor, is at kurtluchs.com. He lives and works in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he has no outstanding warrants.

The Finalists:

      • “Mexican Tongue,” JD Amick
      • “[Letter of Love] to Ojīchan,” Aozora Brockman
      • “Self Portrait with Rubble,” Sylvia Foley
      • “A pledge to the dead requires no proof,” Jennifer L. Hollis
      • “Corpse,” Dana Jaye
      • “Meditation on a Trash Fire in My Backyard,” Robert J. Keeler
      • “Quantum Heart,” Kathleen Kirk
      • “Waiting for Mother’s Geraniums,” Pingmei Lan
      • “One Intimate Morning,” Belle Ling
      • “Nighttime in Jericho,” Jo-Ann Mort
      • “Stones without People and the Art of the Mulberry,” Adele Ne Jame
      • “Consumption of a Black Hole and Sweat Bees,” John Nieves
      • “Thin Places,” Edward Nudelman
      • “Thought Experiment,” Edward Nudelman
      • “Apples, Crabapples,” David Rock
      • “Sometimes, Briefly,” Kelly Rowe
      • “Unscrolling,” Joan Roberta Ryan
      • “Spring Freeze,” Joan Roberta Ryan
      • “Dead Woman’s Hollow Road,” Nicole Santalucia
      • “What White Lies Beneath,” Heidi Seaborn
      • “Prelude to a Resurrection,” d.r. shipp
      • “She Zuo Bin’s Rite of Spring,” Mary Spalding
      • “Where We Call to Nest,” Felicia Zamora
      • “Turbulence: Night Flight to Cairo,” Kristin Zimet

Congratulations again!

Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets–A Tie for Winner!

This year, two poems submitted for the Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets were so exceptional, they both had to win.  That’s right:  we had a tie!  Both Ivy Marie Clarke, for her poem “Where to Find Poetry,” and Rema Shbaita, for their poem “Palestine is Upsidedown” will win the $100 prize, and their work will appear in the Fall issue.  Congratulations to Ivy and Rema, and to all the Finalists!

Rema Shbaita is a graduate of UC, Riverside and a former Co-Editor in Chief of The Mosaic Art & Literary Journal est. 1959They don’t consider dandelions weeds and they’re allergic to grass.  They enjoy media about found families and slap-dash friendship groups. They’re working on getting into a PhD program for educational research.

Ivy Marie Clarke is an emerging writer and photographer from Georgia, where she is studying Creative Writing and English Literature at Mercer University. She is currently a preceptor for English classes at her university and an intern at Macon Magazine.

The Finalists:

      • “Hills (for Bia),” McKenzie Hurder
      • “On the Edge,” Christine Kannapel
      • “Self Portrait with a Hare,” Reuben Gelley Newman
      • “Self Portrait as Expatriated Sapling in North Beijing,” Benjamin Stallings

Hijito

Last year’s International Poetry Contest winner, Carlos Andrés Gómez, will be in Atlanta to promote his new poetry collection Hijito at Spoke ATL on Sept. 13th.  Can’t make the reading?  Check out his book.

And in case you missed his winning poem “Underground” from 2018, you can read it here.

Got a new book out?  Let us know!

 

 

Our Submittable Portal Is Open Again!

Did you miss us while we were closed to online submissions?  Of course you did.  And we missed you too!

Our doors are open once more!  You can start sending us your wonderful poems at Submittable.  We are ready for a new batch.  (Though tbh we’re still making our way through contest subs, so we ask  for our contest submitters’ continued patience while we finish reading your work–we received nearly 475 submissions this year).

Hope you’re having a great summer writing your hearts out!

submit

Summer Hiatus Beginning 6/1

It’s summer which means we’re about to take a month off from receiving new work so that we can catch up on all the general/ contest submissions you’ve sent us—well, we will try anyway!

Our Submittable portal will be closed from June 1-30 for general submissions.  (Of course, you can always snail mail us work in June if you simply MUST send us your poems.)

We will re-open for new submissions on July 1st.

Dan Veach Prize for Younger Writers–Send Us Your Subs!

Attention undergraduate poets–here’s a bright idea for you:

Would you like to see your poem in print AND win $100 prize?  Of course you would!

The Dan Veach Prize for Younger Writers is open to undergraduate students from 18-23, and it’s free to enter.  (You just need a Submittable account, which is also free, to submit your work.)

Send us two of your best poems, each under 40 lines long, and a recommendation letter from a professor or an adult who knows your writing well and can attest that it’s your own work.

The contest is open until June 1st!  Enter here.

(And creative writing professors–please send your brilliant student poets our way!)

Contest Closing in Less Than a Month!

That’s right, everyone, our 2019 International Poetry Contest closes on May 15th, which means you have less than a month to get your poems into the contest.  What are you waiting for?

$10 lets you submit a packet of 3 poems.  Submit as many packets as  you want—the more the merrier.

Hurry, hurry!  Send us your poems!  We’re excited to read your work!

Check out our guidelines for more details!  And then submit!

International Poetry Contest Ready for Your Best Poems!

This year’s International Poetry Contest is up and running.  Send us your poems from around the globe!  We’re eager to read them.

What’s new:

  • We’ve lowered our contest submission fee to a flat rate–now you can submit any 3 poems for $10.  Enter as often as you like!  Send us 3 poems or 30, it’s up to you!
  • We have a new contest window:  Submit from February 1st-May 1st.

Check out our guidelines for more details!  And then submit!