Sow's Ear Poetry Review sponsors two poetry contests each year: the Chapbook Contest in March and April and the Poetry Contest in September and October.  Both contests are judged by poets with national reputations.  For more information, visit the individual contest pages.

Congratulations to those poets, who have won our contests over the years.

WINNERS OF THE CHAPBOOK CONTEST:

WINNERS OF THE POETRY CONTEST:

2019 - Karen Donovan, Exploded Assembly
2018 - Isaac Ginsberg Miller, Stopgap
2017 - Margaret Mackinnon, ​Naming the Natural World
2016 - Jeanne Wagner, The Genesis Machine
2015 - Kim Garcia, Tales of the Sisters
2014 - Danielle Cadena Deulen, American Libretto
2013 - Matthew Byrne, Silent Partner
2012 - Jane Schapiro, Mrs. Cave's House
2011 - Sydney Lea, Mahayana in Vermont
2010 - Steve Lautermilch, Rim
2009 - Kathleen Spivack, A History of Yearning
2008 - Maureen Seaton, America Loves Carney
2007 - Amy Lemmon, Fine Motor
2006 - Charles Wyatt, A Girl Sleeping
2005 - Charles Atkinson, Because We Are Men
2004 - Gayle Elen Harvey, Vanishing Points
2003 - Lynne Knight, Deer in Berkeley
2002 - Jeffrey Ethan Lee, The Sylf
2001 - Melissa Fondakowski, Impatiens
2000 - Andrea Carter Brown, Brook & Rainbow
1999 - Anna Leahy, Hagioscope
1998 - Elizabeth Rees, Balancing China
1997 - Floyd Skloot, Bittersweet Nightshade
1996 - Gary J. Whitehead, Walking Back to Providence
1995 - Peter Meinke, Campocorto
1994 - Carole Bernstein, And Stepped Away from the Circle
1993, Ionna-Veronika Warwick, No Longer Mine
1992 - Philip Terman, What Survives


Nota Bene: The year of the competition is listed. The winning chapbook is published in the following year and distributed as the spring issue of the Sow's Ear Poetry Review.

2019 - Erin Wells, "Dream Sequence, Following Late News"
2017 - Ann Kaiser, "The Sound of Clothes"
2016 - T.J. Sellari, "Elegy for Thomas Robert Riecker (1964-1987)"
2015 - James McKee, "Advice to a Painter"
​2014 - Jeanne Wagner, "Oppenheimer's House"
2013 - Arne Weingart, "Recursion"
2012 - Jude Nutter, "Fossil Hunting at John Lennon Airport, Liverpool"
2011 - Charles Atkinson, "No Big Thing"
2010 - Josh Rathkamp, "Once Every Year, in Jatinga"
2009 - Dean Rader, "Hesiod in Oklahoma, 1934"
2008 - Becky Sakellariou, "Bone"
2007 - Andrea Potos, "Bread"
2006 - Martin Galvin, "Cream"
2005 - Mary Elizabeth Parker, "Pocosins and The Pines of Rome"
2004 - S. K. Carew, "Bride of Dream Man"
2003 - Harry Humes, "My Ravine"
2002 - Jeanne Emmons, "Bathsheba Bathing"
2001 - Lisa Rhodes, "Dark Field"
2000 - Jerry McGuire, "The Nicknames"
1999 - Richard Hague, "Poem About Time, With Lions"
1998 - Rachel Contreni, "Grief"
1997 - Russell Clay, "The Symmetry of Curses"
1996 - Margaret Rabb, "Low Owl Illusion"
1995 - Elton Glaser, "Two Drink Minimum"
1994 - Ruth Anderson Barnett, "Beach Glass"
1993 - William Morgan, "Carnal Knowledge"
1992 - Christianne Belk, "The Breeze Nudges the Junipers, Promising"
1991 - Leonard Kress, "Anonymous Church Mural, Kensington: Martyrdom of Our Lord" AND Sue Ellen Thompson, "What I Wanted"
1990 - Ioanna-Veronika Warwick, "Moje Serce"
1989 - Cathy Stern, "August: On the Texas Coast"
1988 - Diane Robinson, "Easter Bread"


Nota Bene: The year of the competition is listed.  The winning poem is published in the Sow's Ear Poetry Review during the following year in the summer issue.