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


AUGUST 1, 2017    |    CONTEST RESULTS





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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.

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. Learn more about Jake Adam York, our prize, and past winners here.


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 RUNNER-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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