Marilyn Chin Selects Kate Sweeney as Winner of 2024 Adrienne Rich Award
Of Sweeney’s poem, Marilyn Chin writes, "I love this tiara of sonnets, filled with lurid confessions and womanist high jinks. I am especially impressed by the sprinklings of brilliant assertions: 'Gender is undistinguishable from gender…' 'You were immune, an error of blood at birth, small and pale, and boned.' Perhaps this sequence was inspired by Adrienne Rich’s 'Twenty-One Love Poems,' perhaps not. Nonetheless, I believe that Adrienne Rich would’ve enjoyed reading this edgy collection.”
We’re grateful to the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust and to all who submitted poems for this year’s contest.
Pamela Alexander's Left Selected for the Chad Walsh Chapbook Series
The editors of the Beloit Poetry Journal are delighted to announce that they have selected Pamela Alexander's Left for this year's title in the Chad Walsh Chapbook Series.
Pamela Alexander is the author of four previous collections of poetry, including Slow Fire. Other books were awarded the Yale Younger Poet and Iowa Poetry Prizes, and her work has appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. She taught creative writing at MIT and Oberlin College for many years, and served on the editorial board of FIELD magazine. Her honors include fellowships at the Fine Arts Work Center and at the Harvard-Radcliffe Institute. She lives in Maine.
When you subscribe to the BPJ, you’ll receive as part of your subscription a copy of the forthcoming chapbook in the series. Not a subscriber? Subscribe here.
Marie Howe Selects janan alexandra as Winner of 2023 Adrienne Rich Award
Of alexandra's poem, Marie Howe writes, "I kept coming back to this poem—which looks deceptively simple: folding sheets at the communal laundry line. But what it holds is so much: one and many, what is and what might be, you and me, head and heart, garden and the appearance of garden, the present and the future—all bundled into the now of folding, matching one frowning corner of a sheet to another. Form and Matter indeed. And I felt addressed as a reader, folded in, included in this poet's philosophical reverie, and I felt joy."
We’re grateful to the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust and to all who submitted poems for this year’s contest.
TC Tolbert's "The Quiet Practices" Available Now
TC Tolbert's chapbook, "The Quiet Practices," is now available! Visit our shop today to get your hands on a copy of this winner of the 2023 Chad Walsh Chapbook Prize. Jennifer Tseng writes of this collection, “Formally virtuosic and spiritually vital, these miraculous poems are a response to violence and yet they enact durability, tenderness, survival, change, and love.” We know you'll love this urgent, tender collection. Order a copy today.
Join the Conversation!
We're excited to welcome Craig Beaven to our feature, BPJ Poets In Conversation. He spoke with us about his poem "Portrait of My Daughter in Repose," featured in our latest issue.
