Pulitzer Prizewinner, Natalie Díaz, will judge The Plaza Poetry Prize (60 lines max) in 2025

Natalie Diaz is a distinguished poet and scholar who won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 2021 for her collection Postcolonial Love Poem.

Born in 1978 in Needles, California, Diaz is of Mojave and Mexican descent and is an enrolled member of the Gila River Indian Community. Her work is deeply influenced by her cultural heritage, the landscapes of the American Southwest, and the complexities of identity, love, and language. Diaz originally pursued a career in basketball, playing professionally in Europe, before shifting her focus to literature.

She earned her MFA in creative writing from Old Dominion University, where she also began teaching. Diaz’s debut poetry collection, When My Brother Was an Aztec (2012), garnered critical acclaim for its powerful exploration of family, trauma, and the intersection of personal and cultural histories. Her work often reflects on the challenges faced by Native communities, particularly the struggles related to land, water, and sovereignty.

In addition to her Pulitzer Prize, Diaz has received numerous honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Native Arts and Cultures Foundation Artist Fellowship. Her poetry is celebrated for its lyrical intensity and its ability to weave together themes of myth, memory, and survival.

Beyond her writing, Diaz is a committed advocate for the revitalization of the Mojave language and works as a language activist. She is a Professor at Arizona State University, where she also serves as the Director of the Center for Imagination in the Borderlands. Diaz’s work continues to push the boundaries of contemporary poetry, offering a powerful voice for Indigenous and marginalized communities.

OPEN FOR ENTRIES NOW. The Plaza Poetry Prize (60 lines max). Judge: Natalie Diaz. 1st Prize: £4000 ($5000). Deadline: 28th February 2025. .

Top 20 Audio Poetry Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)

Perfectly Adequate

Claigmar Gardens

Another Suicide Poem

Mutiny for the Girls

Afterwards

Dark on dark on not listening to the news

The Wrong Children

Our Earthenware Jug

The Droplet

Night Pictures

SC Verdugas

Artclass

The Mind’s Eye Sees Red

The Medical Man

Learn Ya English Good

Building the Kingdom on Scones

The Smile

Canta

7-38 55 Theory of Communication

The Graphs

Congrats to the 20 talented poets who made the long list. The standard of entries was very high. There were 408 entries in total (including Bursary and 50% Discounted categories).

The announcement of the shortlist of 10 will happen on the News page end of next week. The final 10 will be published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 2. So, pop back to see which made the cut. (Please note do not release names at this point, not until the judging process is fully complete. We will post all long lists in our anthology, and on our website, later.)

The Plaza Poetry Prize (20 lines max) is open to enter. Judge: Lachlan McKinnon. 1st prize: £1,000. Deadline: 30th September 2024.

Golden Bay

We will be staging our awards ceremony in Malta, on Wed 16th October 2024, in Swizzles, at the Radisson Golden Sands Hotel. All our winners will be invited to attend to accept their prizes and read from their work.

There will be dinner after the ceremony is over, at one of the hotel restaurants.

We’re sorry we can’t cover any travel or accommodation or dinner costs, but would love to see you there, in sunny Malta.

You don’t have to stay at the Radisson. There are loads of places to stay on the island, to match any budget. But we have managed to arrange room discounts for those Plaza Prize Winners who wish to attend, at the following discounted rates for accommodation for 1 nights from the October 16th:

• Superior Country View: €170.00 per night

• Superior Sea View: €215.00 per night

• Suite Country View: €225.00 per night

• Suite Sea View: €270.00 per night

The rates described on this email are for double occupancy including breakfast. The Plaza Prizes is not involved with bookings at all so please don’t get in contact with us about this side of things. To book a room at the discounted rates, please contact the Radisson Golden Sand Reservations directly: reservations.goldensands@rdbmalta.com (Please note – you won’t get these rates if you don’t.)

Win an Extra £1000 on top of your Plaza Prize
Every year, The Plaza Prizes nominates several poems for The Forward Prize for Best Single Poem. This category highlights the impact of individual poems, whether they appear in print or online. It acknowledges the power of a single piece to captivate, move, and resonate with readers.

What is The Forward Poetry Prize?
Since 1992, The Forward Poetry Prize has been synonymous with literary excellence, celebrating the best of modern poetry across the United Kingdom and Ireland. The prize’s establishment marked a pivotal moment in the poetry landscape, providing a platform for both emerging and established poets to gain recognition and reach broader audiences.

Origins and Purpose
The Forward Arts Foundation, a charity dedicated to promoting poetry, established the Forward Poetry Prize with a clear mission: to shine a light on the finest contemporary poetry and to make it accessible to the public. This goal is rooted in the belief that poetry has the power to enrich lives, provoke thought, and foster a deeper understanding of the human experience.

The prize was conceived by William Sieghart, a publisher and philanthropist with a passion for the arts. Sieghart envisioned a prize that would not only reward poets financially but also elevate their work, bringing it to the attention of new readers and critics alike.

Impact and Influence
Over the years, the Forward Poetry Prize has significantly influenced the careers of many poets. Winning or even being shortlisted for the prize can propel a poet into the literary spotlight, leading to increased book sales, media attention, and further opportunities for publication and performance.

The prize has also played a crucial role in expanding the audience for poetry. By celebrating diverse voices and themes, the Forward Prize has helped to dispel the notion that poetry is an esoteric or inaccessible art form. Instead, it showcases poetry’s relevance and ability to address contemporary issues, emotions, and experiences.

Notable Winners and Works
The Forward Poetry Prize has honored a remarkable array of poets, including some of the most celebrated names in contemporary literature. Past winners include Seamus Heaney, Ted Hughes, Carol Ann Duffy, and Simon Armitage. These poets have left an indelible mark on the literary world, and their recognition by the Forward Prize has further cemented their legacies.

In recent years, the prize has continued to highlight a diverse range of voices. For instance, in 2020, the Forward Prize for Best Collection was awarded to Vahni Capildeo for “Venus as a Bear,” a work praised for its inventive language and exploration of identity and place. The Felix Dennis Prize for Best First Collection went to Will Harris for “Rendang,” a collection that delves into themes of heritage and belonging.

Looking Ahead
As it approaches its fourth decade, the Forward Poetry Prize remains a vital and dynamic force in the literary world. It continues to adapt to the evolving landscape of poetry, embracing new forms, platforms, and voices. Through its commitment to excellence and inclusivity, the prize ensures that contemporary poetry thrives and reaches ever-widening audiences.

In a world that increasingly values quick consumption and fleeting trends, the Forward Poetry Prize stands as a testament to the enduring power of words and the profound impact of poetry. By celebrating and supporting poets, the prize not only honors the past and present but also nurtures the future of this timeless art form.

2024 Winners
Vasiliki Albedo – ‘On hearing the seismologist say there could be an 8.5R earthquake near Athens’ (And Other Poems)
Derek Chan – ‘A Craft Talk on the Praxis of an August Afternoon’ (Oxford Poetry)
Lisa Kelly – ‘I Wanted to Show You a Donkey in the Field Or I Want to Show You the Donkey in a Field’ (The Rialto)
Tife Kusoro – ‘the only other dark-skinned girl’ (National Poetry Competition)
Cindy Juyoung Ok – ‘Ward of One’ (Poetry London)

ENTER NOW. The Plaza Poetry Prize. Judge: Lachlan McKinnon. 1st Prize: £1000 (US$1250). Deadline: 3oth September 2024.

Winning Poetry Entries
(titles listed in order)

The judging process is now complete. It’s time to announce the winners. Our thanks go to Moniza Alvi. All the comments below are hers.

1st: ‘Puck’s Glen’
Julie Sheridan (SCO/ESP)

I was immediately struck by the rich texture of ‘Puck’s Glen’, and how the poem truly inhabits language. Scots words, such as ‘a cleugh’ (ravine), ‘birls’ (spins) ‘drookit’ (drenched), take us deep into a compelling landscape. Language is savoured throughout and feels alive, fresh-made: ‘your collie quests up the glen’, ‘the light elopes’. There’s a welcome and unexpected intimacy in how the landscape is evoked in terms of a woman’s body, with ‘pools the colour of warm colostrum’ and the ravine, ‘a dark, pudendal scar’. The name, Puck’s Glen, summons the sprite of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and this sense of enchantment is further conjured: ‘Remember / life before we were witches in the woods? / No, my friend, me neither.’ ‘Puck’s Glen’ is a robust, yet tender poem, strongly engaged with the spirit of place.

2nd:‘Electric Whooper’
John D. Kelly (N.IRE)

A dead whooper swan is a source of animation in a poem of close observation and of revelation. Although mute, this pen swan facilitates both words and music: ‘I hear strange / music willing me to sing, once more’, ‘metronomic wing- / beats hang in the stilled air’. It brings about a musician’s internal awakening: ‘And in my mind, I am centred again, back / at my piano scoring a song, writing / lyrics’, lyrics inspired by, and featuring, the swan. In a powerful, musical vision, the whooper flies ‘in a ‘V’ as the lead note’. The poem travels backwards in time, culminating in the swan’s death by electrocution ‘after shorting / the parallel flow of a deadly charge’. Thus an intensifying, ultimately electric poem, honours the strength of a human connection with the swan and its haunting, enabling otherness.

3rd: ‘When our approximate present does not approximately determine our future’
Melissa Knox Evans (ENG)

This vibrant, disturbing prose poem explores the concept of chaos theory and a movement towards disorder, through a tragic traffic accident. The scenario slips and slides between time and place; the highway I-25 to Lone Tree in the USA and Selangor, Malaysia. The piece builds dramatically, evoking worlds: ‘behind the eyes of spirits’, ‘the Selangor thrummed with fire’, ‘Rain thunders down my windscreen, its dense arrhythmia’. With the flexibility of the prose poem form, this potent imagery is interwoven with everyday language: ‘John’s father calls with another update on his sister’. The piece seems to ride on its own melt, the tension mounts and the turn of events is memorably caught in the searing final vision: ‘for a split second, all I see is the road shiver and shatter open, teeming with wild, wild light’.

Highly Commended: ‘The Last Meatpacker, NYC’
Deidre Sullivan

Set in the Meatpacking District of New York, this lucid poem engages with history, contemporary life and change. The industrial past and fashionable modernity are skilfully juxtaposed: ‘He is a relic in a refrigerated space / under the footsteps / of the High Line / that raised railway now an urban path / of curated grasses and shrubs / leading to designer stores’. This solitary meatpacker moves through a surreal underworld filled with the ghosts of carcasses he shadowboxes: ‘a faux fist slap / on remembered hinds’. The atmosphere of the streets is vividly captured through the weather: ‘Outside, the suffocating / New York haze bakes / Gansevoort Street into slow motion’. Language is fully alive throughout, and the open-ended stanzas contribute to the poem’s dreamlike quality.

Congrats to the winners. They will be published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 2.

The Plaza Literary: First Chapters Prize is open to enter. Judge: US National Book Award Winner, Jason Mott. 1st prize: £1,500 & Mentoring session. Deadline: 31st July 2024.

Top 10 Poetry Entries
(titles listed in no particular order)

Odeon Days

Puck’s Glen

Frelon

Six Days Without Blinking

The Small Picture

The Last Meatpacker, NYC

Electric Whooper

In Siberia

When our approximate present does not approximately determine our future

Crossing Over

Congrats to the 10 poets who made the shortlist. They will be published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 2.

The announcement of the winners will happen on the News page next week. So, pop back to see which made the cut.

The Plaza Literary: First Chapters Prize is open to enter. Judge: US National Book Award Winner, Jason Mott. 1st prize: £1,500 & Mentoring session. Deadline: 31st July 2024.