Up to $9,000 to Write Poetry

This organization offers 12 awards and prizes to professional and student poets. The awards range from $250 up to $9,000 and are as follows: 1) the Writer Magazine/Emily Dickinson Award, which awards $250 in honor of the memory and poetry of Emily Dickinson, for a poem inspired by Dickinson though not necessarily in her style; 2) the Cecil Hemley Memorial Award, which grants $500 for a lyric poem that addresses a philosophical or epistemological
concern; 3) the Lyric Poetry Award of $500 for a lyric poem on any subject; 4) the Lucille Medwick Memorial Award, which awards $500 for an original poem in any form on a humanitarian theme; 5) the Alice Fay Di Castagnola Award offering $1,000 for a manuscript-in-progress of poetry or verse-drama; 6) the Louise Louis/Emily F. Bourne Student Poetry Award, which grants $250 for the best unpublished poem by a student in grades 9 through 12 from the United States; 7) the George Bogin Memorial Award of $500 for a selection of four or five poems that use language in an original way to reflect the encounter of the ordinary and the extraordinary and to take a stand against oppression in any of its forms; 8) the Robert H. Winner Memorial Award, which awards $2,500 in acknowledgement of original work being done in mid-career by a poet who has not had substantial recognition, and it is open to poets over forty who have published no more than one book; 9) the Norma Farber First Book Award of 500 for a first book of original poetry written by an American and published in either a hard or soft cover in a standard edition during the calendar year; 10) the William Carlos Williams Award, which offers between $500 and $1,000 for a book of poetry published by a small press, non-profit, or university press; 11) the Frost Medal, which awards $2,500 for distinguished lifetime service to American poetry; and 12) the Shelley Memorial Award, which awards between $6,000 and $9,000 to a living American poet, selected with reference to his or her genius and need. There may be entry fees associated with each submission. Contact Poetry Society of America, 15 Gramercy Park, New York, NY 10003-1705; 212-254-9628; http://www.poetrysociety.org/
Income Eligibility: None