Carter Rekoske Is the 2023 Dan Veach Prize for Younger Poets Winner!

We’re thrilled to announce that Carter Rekoske has won this year’s Dan Veach Prize for his poem, “Prayer for Gratitude.”  He has won $100 and his poem will be published in the upcoming Fall issue.

Carter is a 21 year old creative writing student at Bryan College in Tennessee. He won the poetry award in his school’s 2022 and 2023 annual literary contests and will be published in forthcoming issues of Listening and Black Fox Literary Magazine.

We want to thank everyone who participated, and send special shout out to our Finalists and Honorable Mentions!

The Complete List of Finalists

      • Alejandro Aguirre, “Elizabeth Bishop’s Arrival at Havana, 1955”
      • Gospel Chinedu, “Progeny”
      • Gaia McCune, “A Spring Morning”

The Complete List of Honorable Mentions

      • Amad Aamir, “Letters I Keep Writing to the Sea”
      • Daniel Barry, “Senior Week”
      • Jayant Kashyap, “Nilgai”
      • Chiwenite Onyekwelu, “Duplex for My Father”

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

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!)