Winners
(titles listed in order)
Thanks to our judge, Nin Andrews. Nin is the author of the fifteen poetry collections including The Last Orgasm (2020), Miss August (2017), and Why God is a Woman (2015). She is the recipient of two Ohio individual artists grants, the Pearl Chapbook prize, The Wick Chapbook contest, and the Gerald Cable Award. Her poetry has been featured in numerous journals and anthologies including Ploughshares, Agni, The Paris Review, four editions of Best American Poetry, Great American Prose Poems from Poe to the Present, The Best of the Prose Poem, an International Journal, The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Poetry, and The Best American Erotic Poems.
To learn more about Nin go to: https://www.ninandrews.com/about
All the comments below are from her.
Top 4
1st prize: ‘The Cork Board’ by Jacqueline Day
“The Corkboard” is a lovely example of the object-prose that starts in the ordinary (the image of a board on which one pins mementos and reminders of a life one has lived) and moves to the extraordinary, posing existential questions of one’s identity. Like most great prose poems, it ends with the stunning last line/image of a tiny, pinned heart, still beating.
2nd prize: ‘Joan Collins Gets into a Locker’ by Matt Barnhard
“Joan Collins Gets into a Locker” is a pleasure to read from the title to the last line. Surreal, witty, imaginative, the poem does what all my favorite prose poems do—it opens and closes quickly, like the wings of a butterfly, leaving the reader in a state of delight.
3rd prize: ‘On Joining the Neighbourhood Watch’ by Ursula Kelly
“On Joining the Neighbourhood Watch” is an enjoyable cross between prose poetry and a lyric essay, describing the role of the observer in the world, and of the observer of the observer The eye for detail is what makes this prose poem shine.
4th prize: ‘Memory of a Hothouse’ by Lawrence O’Dwyer
“Memory of a Hothouse” is a surreal, brilliant prose poem that uses the extended metaphor of a hothouse to contemplate death and dying as well as the guilt one feels when one avoids visiting aging loved ones. And what a perfect metaphor it is! Reading it, I could almost smell the ripe scent of the dying. I felt overwhelming waves of guilt. Sensual, heavy, and with a hint of magical realism, the poem reminded me of the writings of Gabriel García Márquez.
Shortlist (with writers’ names)
‘5 ways to cook a red cabbage’ by Maria Woodford
‘The Magic of Lines’ by Diane Williams
‘Yellow Umbrellaism’ by June Wentland
‘Copperhead Worship Cults’ by Samuel Prince
‘Fish Fry With The Siegels’ by Judith Serin
‘Le Cessionaire’ by Samuel Prince
Long List
‘Mouse-woman’ by Ursula Kelly
‘Watch Me’ by Akinna Aqino
‘Fox Mother’ by Daisy Black
‘Runger’ by Anne Ryland
‘How to Lose Empathy’ by Christian Ward
‘Alice Loses Her Voice’ by Ursula Kelly
‘Plastered in Paris’ by Jacqueline Day
‘Compulsion’ by SK Grout
‘All-American Prose Poem’ by Adrian Potter
‘Maximum Occupancy’ by Anna Turner
Congrats to our winners, and very well done to all the prose poets on our shortlist. Your work will be published in The Plaza Prizes Anthology 3. For those who made the long list – we hope these credits will help build your literary reputations!
The Plaza Poetry Prize (40 lines max) is OPEN now to enter. Judge: George Szirtes. 1st prize: £1,000 / $1250. Deadline: 31st May, 2025.