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Results of the 2021 Auburn Witness Poetry Prize Honoring Jake Adam York


AUGUST 13, 2021    |    CONTEST RESULTS





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The editors of Southern Humanities Review are proud to announce the results of our eighth 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 Jericho Brown—selected our winner. The winner, runners-up, finalists, and honorable mention will appear together in Volume 54.3, which will be published in the Fall of 2021.

The poems and poets honored this year are preceded by an outstanding collection of work from our 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 Auburn Witness Poetry Prizes. Learn more about Jake Adam York, our prize, and past winners here.


Elizabeth Aoki

for her poem “Slouching like a velvet rope”

Elizabeth Aoki is a poet, fiction writer, and game producer. Her first poetry collection, Breakpoint was a 2019 National Poetry Series Finalist and went on to receive the Patricia Bibby First Book Award from Tebot Bach. Aoki has received fellowships from the City of Seattle, Artist Trust Foundation, Jackstraw Writers Program, Clarion West Writers Workshop, and Hedgebrook. You can find her tweeting @baoki or contact her via her website at betsyaoki.com. Her prior publications include Calyx, Hunger Mountain, Nassau Review (winner of the 2015 Writer Award), the Nimrod International Journal of Prose and Poetry, Phoebe, Poetry Northwest, the Seattle Times, Seattle Review, and terrain.org (Letters to America).

OUR WINNER RECEIVES $1,000 AND WILL PARTICIPATE IN A READING THIS OCTOBER 2021 TO READ HER POETRY ALONGSIDE CONTEST JUDGE JERICHO BROWN.



Maurya Kerr   “Dorothy Dandridge on White Men in Hollywood”
Darius Simpson   “I Left the Church in Search of God”


OUR RUNNERS-UP WILL EACH RECEIVE A $100 PRIZE AND WILL HAVE THEIR WORK PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 54.3 ALONGSIDE THE CONTEST'S WINNER.



Mary Leauna Christensen   “In Which I Am a Sum of Parts”
Armen Davoudian   “Vice Squad”
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”


OUR FINALISTS WILL HAVE THEIR WORK PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 54.3 ALONGSIDE THE CONTEST'S WINNER.



Ariana Francesca Thomas   “Slingshots for Cowboy Astronauts”

OUR HONORABLE MENTION WILL HAVE HER WORK PUBLISHED IN ISSUE 54.3 ALONGSIDE THE CONTEST'S WINNERS.


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