In 2019, Joy Harjo was appointed the 23rd United States Poet Laureate, the first Native American to hold the position and only the second person to serve three terms in the role. Harjo’s nine books of poetry include Weaving Sundown in a Scarlett Light, An American Sunrise, Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings, How We Became Human: New and Selected Poems, and She Had Some Horses. She is also the author of two memoirs, Crazy Brave and Poet Warrior, which invites us to travel along the heartaches, losses, and humble realizations of her “poet-warrior” road. She has edited several anthologies of Native American writing including When the Light of the World was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through — A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry and Living Nations, Living Words, the companion anthology to her signature poet laureate project. Her many writing awards include the 2022 Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2019 Jackson Prize from Poets & Writers, the Ruth Lilly Prize from the Poetry Foundation, the 2015 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and the William Carlos Williams Award from the Poetry Society of America. She is a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, Board of Directors Chair of the Native Arts & Cultures Foundation, and is artist-in-residence for the Bob Dylan Center. A renowned musician, Harjo performs with her saxophone nationally and internationally; her most recent album is I Pray For My Enemies. She lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Southern Humanities Review awards an annual $1,000 prize and publication opportunity for a poem of witness in honor of the late poet Jake Adam York. Presented in October by the Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art at Auburn University, the Auburn Witness Poetry Prize event features the recipient and judge in conversation at the museum and includes a workshop. The recipient also receives travel expenses to attend the event.

The 2023 judge is Joy Harjo.

Learn about Joy Harjo and view full contest guidelines below.

About Jake Adam York
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Jake Adam York was an award-winning poet, the celebrated author of four collections of poetry, a fifth-generation Alabamian, and an undergraduate alum of Auburn University. He first came to poetry working with the faculty of Auburn’s Department of English and went on to write poems that, with both love and anguish, examined race relations in the South, celebrating the triumphs of the Civil Rights movement and questioning, as a native son of the South, his own complicity in its tragedies. The earliest versions of these poems—which went on to garner numerous awards and publication honors—can be found in York’s senior thesis, written at Auburn and housed in our library.

Natasha Trethewey, a Pulitzer-Prize winning author and former Auburn professor of English, described York’s collection A Murmuration of Starlings as “a fierce, beautiful, necessary book. Fearless in their reckoning, these poems resurrect contested histories and show us that the past—with its troubled beauty, its erasures, and its violence—weighs upon us all . . . a murmuration so that we don't forget, so that no one disappears into history.”

York died unexpectedly of a stroke at the age of forty in the winter of 2012, leaving behind a body of work that bears witness to our difficult past, and, as all great poems of witness do, lights a way toward understanding. The Auburn Witness Poetry Prize honors not only York’s work, but also his deep and enduring commitment to his home and community in Alabama and Auburn.

Murder Ballads
2005

A Murmuration of Starlings
2008

Persons Unknown
2010

Abide
2014
How to Submit
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The 2023 contest is now closed.

​The winner was Samyak Shertok for his poem "Mother Tongue: A Haunting," which will be published in issue 56.3 in October. See previous winners and finalists below.

2023 SUBMISSION PERIOD: May 1 to June 1

CONTEST JUDGE: Joy Harjo



Each entrant may submit up to three poems of witness. Your $15 entry fee can be paid via Submittable.

Every entrant will receive a copy of SHR featuring the prize-winning poems. For US entrants, the issue will be mailed to the address you provide while paying your entry fee. You may update your mailing address at any time by contacting us at shr@auburn.edu. International entrants will receive a digital copy of the issue.

Submit your work via our Submittable. You should enter your personal information into the required Submittable fields. Please include a brief cover letter with your submission, but do not include any personal information (name, mailing address, email, etc.) on your poems. All entries will be screened by SHR editors before being sent to a final judge. Submissions will be read blind after they are passed to the final judge. The final judge will select a first-place winner and any runners-up. SHR editors will select finalists, and a small group of these finalists will be selected for print and/or online publication alongside the winner. Results will be announced in August.

Entries must be previously unpublished. We accept simultaneous submissions. You may withdraw your submission at any time via our online submission manager—if you do so, you will still receive your copy of SHR.

Questions about the contest should be addressed to shr@auburn.edu.

RULES OF ELIGIBILITY

• Friends, relatives, and former teachers and students of current SHR staff members and/or the final judge are not eligible for this prize.

• Current or former staff members of SHR are not eligible.

• Current Auburn University staff, faculty, and undergraduate students are not eligible.

• Former Auburn University undergraduate students who graduated before June 2014 are welcome to submit their work.

• Current or former Auburn University graduate students are not eligible.

• Previous first-place winners of this prize are not eligible, but previous finalists and runners-up are welcome to submit their work.

CODE OF ETHICS
Southern Humanities Review complies with the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses (CLMP) contest code of ethics.

CLMP’s community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to 1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors; 2) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public. This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.
Previous Prize Winners
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2014 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 48.4

WINNER
AMANDA GUNN     My Father Speaks   |   Raid at Combahee River, June 2, 1863   |  Eastern Shore Ghazal


RUNNERS-UP
JULIA KOLCHINSKY DASBACH     Songs of Home
SHARA LESSLEY     Strawberries: The Srebrenica Massacre


FINALISTS
LAUREN CAMP     Pause Hawk Cloud Enter   |   Still Life with Extinctions
KAI CARLSON-WEE     Alex Martinez Dividing Himself into Pieces
JOSHUA GAGE     The Bridegroom of Rad'a
JENNIFER HORNE     Navigation
JEREMY KEENAN JACKSON     The Behavior of Wild Birds
ANNA LEAHY     Culture and Anarchy
ENID SHOMER     Rara Omnia
DAVID TUCKER     Women from My Childhood
SETH BRADY TUCKER     Memphis
RICHARD TYLER     Mother Kirk Learns to Read at 101 Years Old
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2015 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 49.4

FINAL JUDGE
Richard Tillinghast

WINNER
MARK WAGENAAR    Southern Drought Blues  |   Southern Tongues Leave Us Shining   |   Southern Update


FIRST RUNNER-UP
SUSAN O'DELL UNDERWOOD    God as Edmund Pettus Bridge


SECOND RUNNER-UP
DOUG RUTLEDGE    The Quiet Violin


FINALISTS
MEHUL BHAGAT    Segregation Story
RYAN BLACK    Home by the Sea
CORTNEY LAMAR CHARLESTON    Katrina
MEGHAN DUNN    Lockdown
JENNIFER GIVHAN    Protection Spell (Riot's Eye)
PAMELA HART    On the Orange Jumpsuit
SUSANNA LANG    My Grandfather's Hat
ANSLEY MOON    Field Studies
HANIF WILLIS-ABDURRAQIB    On the Filming of Black Death
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2016 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 50.1&2

FINAL JUDGE
Natasha Trethewey

WINNER
EMARI DIGIORGIO    Punch Line

RUNNERS-UP
BRIONNE JANAE    First Rites
ERIN MURPHY    Imperial Valley

FINALISTS
EMILY AUGUST    The Healer
MARGO BERDESHEVSKY    No Modifier At All
CHELSEA DINGMAN    Near Narajiv Selo
MEGHAN DUNN    Falling Crane
JOSHUA KRYAH    August; If We Let Them the Boys Will Embrace Us   |   Noli Timere
ALICIA WRIGHT    On the Morning I Know I Know Walnut Grove Plantation, 2014   |   Cloud of Unknowing
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2017 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 51.3

FINAL JUDGE
Naomi Shihab Nye

WINNER
LAURA SOBBOTT ROSS    Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages

RUNNERS-UP
CHIVAS SANDAGE    Chopping Onions
FRANKE VARCA    Palming the Air   Hamsa

FINALISTS
ELIZABETH AOKI    Walking here is to be swallowed by the sky
BRUCE BOND    The Calling
TYLER MILLS    Bastille Day
ONDŘEJ PAZDÍREK    Lancscape with the Fall of Icarus, Again
LESLIE SAINZ    Malecón
ANDY YOUNG    The Immunity of Dreams
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2018 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 52.2


​FINAL JUDGE
Camille Dungy

WINNER
TERESA DZIEGLEWICZ   On building a school

RUNNERS-UP
ROHAN CHHETRI    Lamentation for a Failed Revolution 
CRAIG VAN ROOYEN    The House Where You Do Not Live

FINALISTS
CATHERINE ANDERSON   O Candid World 
MEGHAN DUNN    Historical Context: Two Lesson Plans
ANNA VQ ROSS    Studies Show
HENRY CRAWFORD    Blackout
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2019 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 52.3


​FINAL JUDGE
Vievee Francis

WINNER
DATE DI STEFANO   Burning Churches

FINALISTS
JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY   Transubstantiation
MICHAEL TORRES    All-American Mexican
SUSAN COHEN    A Different Alphabet
ALLISON ADAIR    Near Miss

2020 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 53.3

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FINAL JUDGE
PAISLEY REKDAL

WINNER
MATT DONOVAN   The Etymology of Gazebo

RUNNERS-UP
LESLIE MCINTOSH   Moynihan Dreams of the Black Life's Lack
BETHANY SCHULZ HURST   Exposure

FINALISTS
JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLEY   00:00:11
ASHIA AJANI    Durag
ARIANA BENSON    On Mars
MARISA TIRADO    Selena Sonnets
ANNIE WOODFORD    Wilkes County Posada

2021 WINNERS APPEAR IN VOL 54.3

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​FINAL JUDGE
JERICHO BROWN

WINNER
ELIZABETH AOKI      Slouching like a velvet rope

RUNNERS-UP
MAURYA KERR      Dorothy Dandridge on White Men in Hollywood
DARIUS SIMPSON      I Left the Church in Search of God

FINALISTS
MARY LEAUNA CHRISTENSEN      In Which I Am a Sum of Parts
NOAH DAVIS      The Last Beast We Revel In
ARMEN DAVOUDIAN      Morality Police
MARLANDA DEKINE      Plantersville, South Carolina
ANDREW HEMMERT      Angels
CATE LYCURGUS      Eye Witness
ATHENA NASSAR      Ken'ya See Us Now
KHALISA RAE      Circus Acts: No More Black Girl Magic

HONORABLE MENTION
ARIANA FRANCESCA THOMAS      Slingshots for Cowboy Astronauts

2022 WINNERS APPEAR IN
​VOL 55 NO 3 & 4

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FINAL JUDGE
RICK BAROT

WINNER
DANIEL DONAGHY      Tulsa Triptych

​FINALISTS
JUBI ARRIOLA-HEADLY      Addendum
M. CYNTHIA CHEUNG      The Last Surgeon in Mariupol
JULIA KOLCHINSKY DASBACH      Watching Masha i Medved as Russia Invades Ukraine
MARISSA DAVIS      In summer, a bird
                           Second Parable for the Apocalypse We Built: The Forum
EMET EZELL     WHITE MAN RUNNING KICKS HIS DOG
JACOB GRIFFIN HALL      First I Should Acknowledge the Conditions
CINDY JUYOUNG OK      In Atlanta
DESIREE SANTANA      Flatfooting & Fatalism
ALEXANDRA TEAGUE      Correlations