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 2014, 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
>via: http://www.usu.edu/usupress/poetry_award/