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Results of the 2017 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York


AUGUST 1, 2017    |    CONTEST RESULTS



THE EDITORS OF Southern Humanities Review are proud to announce the results of our fourth 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 Naomi Shihab Nye—selected our winner and runners-up. SHR’s editors selected the finalists. The winner, runners-up, and finalists will be published together in Volume 51.3, which is now available for pre-order.


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Laura Sobbott Ross

for her poem “Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages”

Laura Sobbott Ross teaches English to ESOL students at Lake Technical College in central Florida, and has worked as a writing coach for Lake County Schools. Her poems appear in Blackbird, Meridian, The Florida Review, Calyx, Natural Bridge, and elsewhere. She was named as a finalist for Arts & Letters’s 2016 Poetry Prize. She is author of the chapbooks A Tiny Hunger and My Mississippi.

OUR WINNER RECEIVES $1,000 AND WILL TRAVEL TO AUBURN UNIVERSITY IN OCTOBER 2017 TO READ AT A POETRY EVENT FEATURING CONTEST JUDGE NAOMI SHIHAB NYE.



Chivas Sandage

for her poem “Chopping Onions”

Chivas Sandage is the author of Hidden Drive, a finalist for the 2012 ForeWord Book of the Year Award in poetry. Her poems and essays are forthcoming from or have appeared in Hartford Courant, Ms. Magazine, The Rumpus, Southern Women’s Review, Morning Song: Poems for New Parents, AROHO’s The Waves Anthology, and elsewhere. She lives with her wife in Collinsville, Connecticut, and San Marcos, Texas.


Franke Varca


for his poem “Palming the Air    Hamsa”

Franke Varca completed his MFA from the University of Michigan. He is a recipient of the Discovery/Boston Review Prize.


EACH OF OUR RUNNERS-UP RECEIVES $100.


Elizabeth Aoki   “Walking here is to be swallowed by the sky”
Bruce Bond   “The Calling”
Tyler Mills   “Bastille Day”
Ondrej Pazdirek   “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus Again Again”
Leslie Sainz   “Malecón”
Andy Young   “The Immunity of Dreams”




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The poems and poets honored this year are preceded by an outstanding collection of work from our 2014, 2015, and 2016 Auburn Witness Poetry Prizes. Please revisit that body of work (below) at your leisure.

Learn more about Jake Adam York and our prize here.

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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