MAY SWENSON AWARD
is on HIATUS for 2011/12.

After fifteen years, the Swenson Poetry Award is taking a one-year vacation. We thank you for your past support of the competition and your ongoing interest.

Please take a look at the award-winning volumes below. All are available in hard copy and as downloadable ebooks.

We expect to renew the competition for the fall of 2012. Stay tuned to this website.

The May Swenson
Poetry Award

This annual competition, named for May Swenson, honors her as one of America's most provocative and vital writers. In John Hollander's words, she was "one of our few unquestionably major poets." During her long career, May was loved and praised by writers from virtually every school of American poetry. She left a legacy of fifty years of writing when she died in 1989. She is buried in Logan, Utah, her hometown.

Travis Mossotti

Winner of 2011 May Swenson Poetry Award Announced

See the 2011 list of finalists

Utah State University Press announces the winner of its 15th annual May Swenson Poetry Award, selected in January by Garrison Keillor.

The 2011 Swenson Award went to Travis Mossotti, of Kirkwood, Missouri for his collection of poems entitled About the Dead.

Mr. Mossotti received a cash award of $1000, and About the Dead will be published by USU Press in the summer of 2011.

Travis Mossotti received a BA in English and French from Webster University and an MFA in poetry from Southern Illinois University–Carbondale. Recently a faculty lecturer at the University of California–Santa Cruz, his poetry appears widely in literary journals, including American Literary Review, Another Chicago Magazine, Cream City Review, New York Quarterly, Passages North, RHINO, Southern Humanities Review, and many others. Mossotti was awarded the James Hearst Poetry Prize from the North American Review in 2009, and “Decampment,” the opening poem to About the Dead, was adapted to screen in 2010 as an animated short film (www.decampment.com). Mossotti currently resides in St. Louis with his wife, Regina.

Previous May Swenson Poetry Award Winners

2011
About the Dead
poems by Travis Mossotti
foreword by Garrison Keillor

2010
Zorba's Daughter
poems by Elisabeth Murawski
foreword by Grace Schulman

2009
Tomorrow's Living Room
poems by Jason Whitmarsh
foreword by Billy Collins

2008
Mrs. Ramsay's Knee
poems by Idris Anderson
foreword by Harold Bloom

2007
Neck of the World
poems by F. Daniel Rzicznek
foreword by Alice Quinn

2006
Haywire
poems by George Bilgere
foreword by Edward Field

2005
The Beautiful Lesson of the I
poems by Frances Brent
Foreword by Rachel Hadas

2004
Where She Always Was
poems by Frannie Lindsay
Foreword by J. D. McClatchy

2003
She Took Off Her Wings and Shoes
poems by Suzette Marie Bishop
Foreword by Alicia Ostriker

2002
The Owl Question
poems by Faith Shearin
Foreword by Mark Doty

2001
The Borgo of the Holy Ghost
poems by Stephen McLeod
Foreword by Richard Howard

2000
All That Divides Us
poems by Elinor Benedict
Foreword by Maxine Kumin

1999
Necessary Light
poems by Patricia Fargnoli
Foreword by Mary Oliver

1998
The Hammered Dulcimer
poems by Lisa Williams
Foreword by John Hollander

1997
Plato's Breath
poems by Randall R. Freisinger
Foreword by Herbert Leibowitz

2011 FINALISTS

Francesca	Abbate	Troy, Unicorporated
John	Blair	The Occasions of Paradise
Ron	Block	Welding Wand
Jaswinder	Bolina	Phantom Camera
Karina	Borowicz	The Bees are Waiting
Annie	Boutelle	Edge
Ronda	Broatch	Rib of New Fruit
Andrea	Brown	True Confessions of a Foot Fetishist
Beverly	Burch	Ex-Communications
Joseph	Campana	Sheltering Bough
Steve	Davenport	Such War
Kathy	Davis	Again the Anvil Sings
Katy	Didden	Avalanche
Tami	Haaland	When we Wake in the Night
Lindsay	Illich	Whoever You are Holding Me Now in Hand
David	Keplinger	Desertion
Stephen	Knauth	Bottle Thrown From a Car
V.P.	Loggins	The Green Cup
Kate	McCann	Barn Sour
Tonya	Northenor	The Good Blood and Bone
Julia	Paul	Repainting the Door
Emily	Plum	The Mythos of Memory and Metaphor
Mary	Quade	Local Extinctions
Laura	Read	Instructions for my Mother's Funeral
Steven	Rood	Music from the Next Room
Carolyn	Scarbrough	The Garden of Fragile Beings
Jane	Springer	Shuck and Jive
Catherine	Staples	Still-Life Breathing
Sandra	Storey	Every State has Its Own Light
Toni	Thomas	You'll be Fast as Lightning Coveting My Painted Tail
Holly	Welker	God's Music
Laurie	Zimmerman	Bright Exit