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Results of the 2018 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York


AUGUST 27, 2018    |    CONTEST RESULTS





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The editors of Southern Humanities Review are proud to announce the results of our fifth 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 Camille T. Dungy—selected our winner and runners-up. The winner, runners-up, and finalists will appear together in Volume 52.2, which will be published in the Summer of 2019.

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


Teresa Dzieglewicz

for her poem “On Building a School”

Teresa Dzieglewicz is a Pushcart Prize winning poet, and a co-director of the Mní Wičhóni Nakíčižiŋ Owáyawa (Defenders of the Water School) at Standing Rock Reservation. She received her MFA from Southern Illinois University, where she received the Academy of American Poets Prize. Her work has been honored by New Harmony Writer’s Workshop, the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center, NY Mills Arts Retreat, and the St. Louis Poetry Center. Her poems appear or are forthcoming in the Pushcart Prize XLII, Beloit Poetry Journal, Sixth Finch, Ninth Letter, THRUSH, RHINO, and elsewhere.

OUR WINNER RECEIVES $1,000 AND WILL TRAVEL TO AUBURN UNIVERSITY IN OCTOBER 2018 TO READ AT A POETRY EVENT FEATURING CONTEST JUDGE CAMILLE T. DUNGY.



Rohan Chhetri

for his poem “Lamentation on a Failed Revolution”

Rohan Chhetri’s first book of poems, Slow Startle (Winner of the Emerging Poets Prize 2015) was published by The (Great) Indian Poetry Collective. A chapbook of poems, Jurassic Desire (Winner of the inaugural Per Diem Poetry Prize) is slated to be published later this year from Per Diem Press. His poems have appeared in Prelude, Rattle, Vinyl, Literary Hub, and his work was recently translated into French for Europe Revue. He was a 2016 Norman Mailer Poetry Fellow.


Craig van Rooyen


for his poem “The House Where You Do Not Live”

Craig van Rooyen received his MFA in poetry from Pacific University. He lives and works in San Luis Obispo, California. His father, the son of a gold miner, grew up in apartheid-era South Africa before immigrating to the United States. Craig’s poems have appeared or are forthcoming in 32 Poems, Narrative, New Ohio Review, Rattle, Southern Poetry Review, Willow Springs, and elsewhere. He is the winner of the 2014 Rattle Poetry Prize.


EACH RUNNER-UP RECEIVES $100.



Anna V. Q. Ross   “Studies Show”
Meghan Dunn   “Historical Context: Two Lesson Plans”
Catherine Anderson   “O Candid World”
Henry Crawford   “Blackout”




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