News

The editors of the Beloit Poetry Journal are delighted to announce that final judge Marilyn Chin has chosen Kate Sweeney’s “Self Portrait” as the winner of the 2024 Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry.

Kate Sweeney holds an MFA from Bennington College and serves as Managing Editor for Pleiades Magazine. Kate’s poems and interviews have appeared or are forthcoming from Poet Lore, Michigan Quarterly Review, Poetry Northwest & elsewhere. She is author of the chapbook, The Oranges Will Still Grow Without Us (Ethel 2021”). Kate lives just north of New York City.

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.”

Along with naming the winner, Chin selected three finalists, Jennifer Martelli for “1979,” No’u Revilla for “Keep Asking Aunties,” and Sydney Mayes for “Portrait of a Negress.”

The editors also selected as semi-finalists Summer Awad’s "love in the time of clovis,” Sarah Matsui’s "Kumquat Taxonomy," Dujie Tahat’s "All-American Ghazal,”  Zuleyha Lasky’s "El-Jadida, Morocco,” Laetitia Keok’s "Intimacy Study,” Jordan Hill’s "Strips of Scar Tissue,” and Zach Linge’s "Poem Ending with a Line by Britney"

The winning poem will appear in an upcoming issue of the BPJ.

We’re grateful to the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust and to all who submitted poems for this year’s contest.

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.

The editors of the Beloit Poetry Journal are pleased to accept entries for the 2024 Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry. The award was established in 2017, with the support of the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust. 

This year’s final judge is Marilyn Chin. Born in Hong Kong, she is the author of six poetry collections and a novel. She is the winner of the 2020 Ruth Lily Prize in Poetry, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, and a Radcliffe Institute fellowship, among other honors. Presently, she serves as a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets and lives in San Diego.

All submissions will be considered for publication, and the winner will receive $1,500. Submissions will remain open through April 30. For more details, see our guidelines.

We're excited to welcome TC Tolbert to our feature, BPJ Poets In Conversation. S/he spoke with us about "The Quiet Practices", Winner of the 2023 Chad Walsh Chapbook Series.

We're excited to welcome Elane Kim to our feature, BPJ Poets In Conversation. She spoke with us about her poem "Prospect Theory" featured in our latest issue.

The editors of the Beloit Poetry Journal are delighted to announce that final judge Marie Howe has chosen janan alexandra’s “on form & matter” as the winner of the 2023 Adrienne Rich Award for Poetry.

janan alexandra is the daughter of a Lebanese mother and a Beirut-born American father. Her life has been nothing if not peripatetic, with roots scattered in Cyprus, Pakistan, Lebanon, and many corners of the US. Since 2015 she has taught creative writing in community-based literacy centers and schools across the US, working with young folks in Los Angeles, rural Maine, Washington DC, and Southern Indiana. A 2021-2022 Creative Research Fulbright Scholar, janan has also received support from the Martha's Vineyard Institute for Creative Writing, the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, and the Bucknell Seminar for Younger Poets. You can read some of her work in Ploughshares, Gulf Coast, The Adroit Journal, The Rumpus, Mizna, and elsewhere. Most recently, janan has landed in New England where she teaches creative writing to young folks, organizes poetry events, and plays fiddle in a folk duo called Sweet May Dews.

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."

Along with naming the winner, Howe selected two finalists, Rowyda Amin for "Strange and Ridiculous Life of the Father" and Simone Zapata for "Deep Breath."

The editors also selected as semi-finalists Alexis Jackson’s "Pound Cake," Sophia Chong’s "Taking the L at the Empress Diner,” Stacey Forbes’ "All we have left,” Caroline New’s "The Elephant Mother," Yi Wei’s "Rituals," Maya Salameh’s "The First Mermaid Ever Climbs Out of the Lake & Tells You She Won't Take You Back,” Jessica Cuello’s "Communion," Carling McManus’ "Returning From Provincetown, You Tell Me," and Kimberly Ann Priest’s "Rage Aria.”

The winning poem will appear in an upcoming issue of the BPJ.

We’re grateful to the Adrienne Rich Literary Trust and to all who submitted poems for this year’s contest.