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.

Judge for the 17th Annual Swenson Award: Mark Doty

Mark Doty is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and prose, including Fire to Fire: New and Selected Poems, winner of the 2008 National Book Award for Poetry. His eight books of poems and four books of nonfiction prose have been honored by the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Whiting Writers Award, a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writers' Award and, in the United Kingdom, the T.S. Eliot Prize. He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ingram Merrill Foundation, and the Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. Mark Doty is Distinguished Writer, Director of Writers House, and Professor of English at Rutgers University.

Swenson Award Guidelines

The winning manuscript will receive a cash prize of $1000, hardcover publication in the summer of 2013, plus royalties on sales of hardcover, paperback, and ebook editions.

All who enter will receive a complimentary copy of the winning book.

Please note, the Swenson Award is not limited to poets who have never previously published a book-length work; several of our winners have been first-book authors, but others have not.

To enter the competition, please follow these guidelines:

hard copy submissions only, no email submissions

your manuscript must be 50 to 100 pages

it must be your original poetry in English

no restrictions on form or subject

on a separate cover sheet, include your name, address, phone, and email address

September 30 postmark deadline

$25 reading fee

your manuscript will not be returned

the judge reserves the right to declare no winner

mail your submission to:

Swenson Poetry Award
3078 Old Main Hill
Utah State University Press
Logan UT 84322-3078
USA

Previous May Swenson Poetry Award Winners

2013
The Lame God
poems by M.B. McLatchey
foreword by Edward Field

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

2013 FINALISTS

Doug	Ramspeck	Original Bodies
Kathy	Davis	Salt Underfoot
James Davis	May	American Irony
Athena	Kildegaard	Nocturne
Angela	Sorby	The Sleeve Ways
Sarah	Sousa	Church of Needles
LaWanda	Walters	No One Needs a Swimsuit at the Free Museum
Jonathan	Fink	The Crossing
Natania	Rosenfeld	Wild Domestic
Gaylord	Brewer	Countries of Ghost
Susan	Roney-O'Brien	Legacy of the Last World
Kate	Kingston	History of Grey
Amorak	Huey	Ha Ha Ha Thump
Rebecca	Lauren	Isle of Que
Kara	Candito	Spectator
Laura Lee	Washburn	The Book of Stolen Images
Jackleen	Holton	How Good Girls Go Bad
Philip	White	Among Other Things
Matthew	Minicucci	Calvary
Ronda	Broatch	Rib of New Fruit
Toni	Thomas	Bandits Come and Remove My Mother's Body in the Night