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Results of the 2020 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York


JULY 28, 2020    |    CONTEST RESULTS





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The editors of Southern Humanities Review are proud to announce the results of our seventh annual poetry contest honoring the late Jake Adam York, award-winning poet and alumnus of Auburn University’s creative writing program. This year’s final judge—celebrated poet Paisley Rekdal—selected our winner. The winner and finalists will appear together in Volume 53.3, which will be published in the Fall of 2020. Honorable Mentions will be published in a special online feature in October 2020.

The poems and poets honored this year are preceded by an outstanding collection of work from our 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019 Auburn Witness Poetry Prizes. Learn more about Jake Adam York, our prize, and past winners here.


Matt Donovan

for his poem “The Etymology of Gazebo”

Matt Donovan is the author of two collections of poetry – Vellum (Mariner 2007) and Rapture & the Big Bam (Tupelo Press 2017) as well as a book of lyric essays, A Cloud of Unusual Size and Shape: Meditations on Ruin and Redemption (Trinity University Press 2016). His work has appeared in numerous journals, including AGNI, American Poetry Review, the Believer, Gettysburg Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry, Seneca Review, Threepenny Review, and Virginia Quarterly Review; Donovan is the recipient of a Whiting Award, a Rome Prize in Literature, a Pushcart Prize, a Creative Capital Grant, and an NEA Fellowship in Literature. He serves as the director of the Poetry Center at Smith College.

OUR WINNER RECEIVES $1,000 AND WILL PARTICIPATE IN A VIRTUAL EVENT THIS OCTOBER 2020 TO READ HIS POETRY ALONGSIDE CONTEST JUDGE PAISLEY REKDAL.



Leslie McIntosh   “Moynihan Dreams of the Black Life’s Lack”
Bethany Schulz Hurst   “Exposure”


OUR RUNNERS-UP WILL EACH RECEIVE A $100 PRIZE AND WILL WILL HAVE THEIR WORK PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 53.3 ALONGSIDE THE CONTEST'S WINNER.



Ashia Ajani   “Durag”
Jubi Arriola-Headley   “00:00:11”
Ariana Benson   “On Mars”
Marisa Tirado   “Selena Sonnets”
Annie Woodford   “Wilkes County Posada”


OUR FINALISTS WILL HAVE THEIR WORK PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 53.3 ALONGSIDE THE CONTEST'S WINNER.



torrin a. greathouse   “Still Life of Central Valley with Riverbed & Hypodermic Needle”
Ojo Taiye   “Recycling the Wastes of the Past”
Amy Davis   “As Company”
Leslie McIntosh   “Wounded: The Body Forgets Its Doors”
JinJin Xu   “The Revolution is Not a Dinner Party”


OUR HONORABLE MENTIONS WILL HAVE THEIR WORK PUBLISHED ONLINE IN OCTOBER IN A SPECIAL POETRY FEATURE.


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