James H. Nash Poetry Contest
Congratulations to our 2022 Winners!
FIRST PLACE
Jason Sommer
A Dream of My Father and of Me
FINALISTS
Rachel Linn
Love Letter
Spencer E. Hurst
The Last Day
Congratulations to our 2022 Semi-Finalists!
Jeanne Allison
I WANT
the hummingbird
Eugene Budnitsky
Sleeping as an Old Man
Brooking Caldwell
Burnt Greens
Where East Meets West
Rita Chapman
Water Cycle
Spencer E. Hurst
Mother
Jane Ellen Ibur
Crimson
Emily Koehn
The Malls That Featured In Our Childhood And In Our Dreams
The Sweetgum Tree At The Playground Looks Like You
Lawrence Holmes
May Be
Amanda Moser
Colonial
Imitation Roses, Daisies, Carnations
Teddy Norris
Greenland is Going
Jo Schaper
Great Blue Heron at Alley Spring
Mojave River
Raccoon in Paw Paw Season
Rachel Linn
Stasis
James Stone Goodman
How God Created the World, Vigil
The Promise, Vigil
Paul Stroble
Switchbacks
On Route 66
SUBMISSIONS CLOSED
First Prize: $500
2 finalists
First place winner will receive a newsletter feature. First place and finalists will all receive a website feature.

2022 Contest Judge:
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Photo credit: Levi Strand
Gabrielle Calvocoressi
Gabrielle Calvocoressi is the author of The Last Time I Saw Amelia Earhart, Apocalyptic Swing (a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize), and Rocket Fantastic, winner of the Audre Lorde Award for Lesbian Poetry. Calvocoressi is the recipient of numerous awards and fellowships including a Stegner Fellowship and Jones Lectureship from Stanford University; a Rona Jaffe Woman Writer’s Award; a Lannan Foundation residency in Marfa, TX; the Bernard F. Conners Prize from The Paris Review; and a residency from the Civitella di Ranieri Foundation, among others. Calvocoressi’s poems have been published or are forthcoming in numerous magazines and journals including The Baffler, The New York Times, POETRY, Boston Review, Kenyon Review, Tin House, and The New Yorker. Calvocoressi is an Editor at Large at Los Angeles Review of Books, and Poetry Editor at Southern Cultures. Works in progress include a non-fiction book entitled, The Year I Didn’t Kill Myself and a novel, The Alderman of the Graveyard. Calvocoressi teaches at UNC Chapel Hill and lives in Old East Durham, NC, where joy, compassion, and social justice are at the center of their personal and poetic practice.
Submissions Open:
February 25 – March 31
Entry Fee: $10
(free for SLPC members)
GUIDELINES:
- Open to all current SLPC members, and to current residents or students in the St. Louis metro area living within a 100-mile radius of St. Louis City
- Saint Louis Poetry Center board members are not eligible to enter the contest
- Submit up to 2 typed poems per entry, any form and length
- No manuscripts will be returned
- Simultaneous submissions are allowed, but previously published or award-winning poems are not eligible (including those that have appeared on social media, websites, blogs, etc)
- Additional poems will be accepted with additional entry fees
- Entry fee is $10, make checks payable to Saint Louis Poetry Center (NOTE: entry fee waived for current SLPC members, free entry with new/renewed membership)
- Enclose a cover sheet that includes: name, address, phone number, email address and the titles of the poems submitted
- Name and address on cover sheet only, no identifying information on poems
- Contest results will be announced in late April (NOTE: to be notified by mail, include self-addressed stamped envelope with mailed entry)
First place and finalists are invited to read their poems at Saint Louis Poetry Center’s annual Poetry Concert.
HOW TO SUBMIT:
Email* entries to:
[email protected]
*If submitting entries by email, attach cover sheet & poems as separate Word or PDF documents. Include a copy of your entry fee receipt or new/renewed membership receipt with your poems (if applicable).
Mail entries with entry fee and SASE to:
Saint Louis Poetry Center
Nash Poetry Contest
3301 Washington Ave. # 2D
St. Louis, MO 63103
ONLINE, EMAIL & POSTMARK DEADLINE: March 31, 2022
Congratulations to our 2021 Winners!
FIRST PLACE
William Youngblood
Father, What is the Distance Between Further and Farther?
FINALISTS
Britny Cordera
Good Feet
Matthew Freeman
Dad and I at the Bus Stop When it’s Six Degrees
Congratulations to our 2020 Winners!
FIRST PLACE
Jacqui Germain
After a Nightmare
HONORABLE MENTIONS
William Youngblood
Portrait of a Man, Probably
Keith Byler
The Mortician
Congratulations to our 2019 Winners!
FIRST PLACE
Keith Byler
Five O’clock News
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Lizzy Petersen
“Elizabeth Mayfield, ca. 1940”
Steven D. Schroeder
Endnotes