2009 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize
CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women,
announces the eighth annual
2009 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize.
Submission dates: March 1, 2009, through May 31, 2009. (These are inclusive postmark dates.)
Prize: Winner will receive $300 cash award, publication in CALYX Journal, and a one-volume subscription. Finalists will be published on CALYX’s website and will receive a one-volume subscription.
Details: Each entry can include up to three (3) unpublished poems, no more than six (6) manuscript pages total. Do not include your name on the same page as a poem; instead, include a separate cover letter with your name, address, phone, e-mail, and titles of poem/s. No manuscripts will be returned. Please send unpublished work and please don’t send simultaneous submissions. Judge’s decisions are final.
Reading fee: $15 per entry, checks payable to CALYX.
Contest winner and finalists will be notified by October 30, 2009, and will be announced on CALYX’s website, www.calyxpress.org. The winning poem will be published in CALYX Journal Vol. 25, no. 3 (Winter 2010) and on CALYX’s website. All entrants from the U.S. will receive prize results in October 2009.
Send submission to:
CALYX, Inc.
Lois Cranston Poetry Prize
PO Box B
Corvallis OR 97339
Lois Cranston was an editor for CALYX Journal for more than ten years. Her remarkable life experiences and knowledge of literature enriched the editorial collective and the journal issues she helped edit. This poetry prize in her name honors the memory of her commitment to the creative work of women from all walks of life.
2008 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
All five winning entries are available by clicking here.
Hilde Weisert of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, is the recipient of the 2008 Seventh Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize. Weisert’s poem was selected from almost 700 poems submitted to the contest from all over the country and Canada. Her winning poem “Finding Wilfred Owen Again” will be published in CALYX Journal in the Winter 2009 issue (Volume 25:1). She also receives a $300 cash award.
First runner-up is Lynn Plath of Skokie, IL, with her poem “Persephone.” Other runner-ups are Rebecca Baggett of Athens, GA, with her poem “That Summer”; Connie Post of Livermore, CA, with her poem “Left Behind”; and Susan Roney-O’Brien of Princeton, MA, with her poem “At St. Peter’s Basilica.”
The final contest judge was Ursula K. Le Guin, who has published six volumes of poetry, over a hundred short stories collected in eleven volumes, three collections of essays, twelve books for children, four of translation, and twenty novels. Her first publications were poems, and in the 1960s she began to publish short stories and novels. Among the honors her writing has received are a National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, five Hugo Awards, and five Nebula Awards. Three novels have been made into movies.
All five winning entries are available by clicking here.
2007 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
Click here to read the winning entries.
Lorraine Healy of Freeland, Washington, is the recipient of the 2007 Sixth Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from CALYX Journal, with her poem “A Poem Before We Face the Business of Death.” The prize-winning poem will be published in the Winter 2008 issue of CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women (Volume 24:2) and on the website. The winner receives a $300 cash award in addition to publication in the Journal.
The five runners-up are Phyllis K. Collier of Ellensburg, Washington, with her poem, “Something in the Way”; Donna J. Gelagotis Lee of Princeton Junction, New Jersey, with her poem “Docking at Limnos”; Judith Tate O’Brien of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with her poem “Let God Come”; Suzanne Roberts of South Lake Tahoe, California, with her poem “Verbs of Being”; and Lynne Thompson of Los Angeles, California, with her poem “The Long Look.”
Final Judge: Paulann Petersen
Paulann Petersen is the winner of the 2006 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award from Literary Arts. Her poems are published in many publications, and she has three poetry chapbooks—Under the Sign of a Neon Wolf, The Animal Bride, and Fabrication. Her full-length poetry collections are The Wild Awake (Confluence Press, 2002), Blood-Silk (Quiet Lion Press, 2004), and A Bride of Narrow Escape (Cloudbank Books, 2005). She serves on the board of Friends of William Stafford.
2006 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
Click here to read the winning entries.
Gail Griffin of Kalamazoo, Michigan, is the recipient of the Fifth Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from CALYX Journal with her poem “War Stories,” which is being published in CALYX Journal, vol. 23, no. 2, Summer 2006.
Three finalists were chosen: Lisa Zimmerman of Fort Collins, Colorado, with her poem “The Dog and the Calling World”; Toni Van Deusen of Eugene, Oregon with her poem “My Mother Confides”; and Judith Tate O’Brien of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, with her poem “To Cece, 5.”
The final judge for the 2006 contest was Alicia Ostriker. She has published eleven books of poetry, including The Crack in Everything and The Little Space: Poems Selected and New, both National Book Award finalists. Her most recent books are The Volcano Sequence and No Heaven. As a critic she is the author of two books on women’s poetry. Ostriker is Professor Emeritus of English at Rutgers University and teaches in the New England College low-residency Poetry MFA program.
2005 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize
Click here to read the winning entries.
Patricia Hale of Connecticut is the recipient of the Fourth Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry prize from CALYX Journal, with her poem "Oil on Canvas, circa 1825." First runner up was Laura Black of Atlanta, Georgia, with her poem “The Stone.” Second runner-up was Carol Wade Lundberg of Penngrove, California, with her poem “Eating History.” The final judge for the 2005 prize was the well-known author and poet Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni. Ms. Divakaruni is the author of four acclaimed poetry books, four novels, two short story collections, and two books for young readers. Her work is published in over fifty publications and thirty anthologies, and her many prizes include the American Book Award, the Gerbode Prize, and the O'Henry Prize. She teaches creative writing at the University of Houston and divides her time between Houston and the San Francisco Bay area.
2004 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
Click here to read the winning entries.
Deborah Narin-Wells of Eugene, Oregon, is the recipient of the Third Annual Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize from CALYX Journal, with her poem "Eurydice Speaks from the Basement." Which is published in CALYX Journal Volume 22:2.
Ginny Lowe Connors' (West Hartford, CT) poem "A Startle of Darkness" was selected as the finalist.
The final judge for the contest was Dr. Shirley Geok-lin Lim, a professor of English at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is the author of Crossing the Peninsula for which she received the Commonwealth Poetry Prize. She has published five poetry collections. She has also received two American Book Awards, one for co-editing The Forbidden Stitch: An Asian American Women's Anthology, and the other for her memoir In the Land of the White Moon Faces. She has published two novels.
2003 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
Click here to read the winning entries.
CALYX Journal is pleased to name Alison Townsend of Stoughton, Wisconsin, as the recipient of the second Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry prize. Townsend's poem "If I Called You River," was published in CALYX, A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Vol. 21, no. 3, January 2004.
Mary Makofske, of Warwick, New York, who wrote "On Guard, In Moonlight," and Shia Shabazz Barnett, of Austin, Texas, who wrote "Inquisition," were both named finalists.
The contest was judged by Ingrid Wendt, author of Moving the House (BOA Editions); Singing the Mozart Requiem (Breitenbush Books), which received the Oregon Book Award for Poetry; and Blow the Candle Out (Pecan Grove Press, 2002).
2002 Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize Winners
The inaugural Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry Prize winner and finalists for 2002
CALYX Journal is pleased to name Susan Elbe of Madison, Wisconsin, as the recipient of the inaugural Lois Cranston Memorial Poetry prize. Elbe’s poem “Dog Days” is published in CALYX , A Journal of Art and Literature by Women, Volume 21, number 1, Winter 2002.
The two finalists were Jennifer Richter of Corvallis, Oregon, who wrote “Four Short Months,” and Wendell Hawken, of Middleburg, Virginia, who wrote “On the Thanksgiving Morning My Grandson’s Born.”
Eleanor Rand Wilner was the final judge for the 2002 prize. She is the author of, Maya (Juniper Prize for Poetry, University of Massachusets Press), Otherwise, Choice, Shekhina (all from the University of Chicago Press), Reversing the Spell: New & Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press), and most recently The Girl With Bees in Her Hair (Copper Canyon Press). Her awards include a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, among many others. She teaches in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College.
