Janice Farrell Poetry Prize Category
First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
Third Prize: $25
Category Details
Three poems per entry. One poem per page. One page poems only. We welcome free verse, blank verse and prose poems. Each year a local poet is invited to guest judge. Past judges have included Indigo Moor, Katherine Harer, Rich Yurman, Patricia Gale, Christopher J. Renz, O.P., David Smith-Ferri, Toby Kaplan, Joyce Jenkins, C. B. Follett, Susan Terris, Janell Moon, Alice Rogoff, Clive Matson, David Alpaugh, Forrest Hamer, Marcia Campbell, Andrena Zawinski, Grace M. Grafton, Adam David Miller, Stewart Florsheim, Marvin R. Hiemstra, Charles and Gail Entrekin, Jeanne Wagner, Erica Goss, Connie Post, Susan Cohen, Dawn McGuire, Robert Eastwood, and Lee Rossi.
About Sponsor
JANICE FARRELL (San Francisco, CA) has a private practice in Spiritual Direction and trains and supervises Spiritual Director interns at Mercy Center Burlingame. She has a degree in Psychology, certification as a Holistic Health Educator Counselor, and has done extensive post grad work in Theology. She invites local poets as annual judges in her eager and full-hearted support of poetry, which she loves deeply.
About the 2021 Judge
AILEEN CASSINETTO (San Mateo, CA), is a Filipino American poet and publisher born and raised in Manila, Philippines. The author of two poetry collections and three chapbooks, her work has appeared or is forthcoming in POETRY, The Banyan Review, Guest, Marsh Hawk Press Review, Moria, The Nonconformist Magazine, Positively Filippino, San Francisco Chronicle, and Vox Populi, among others. She was named an Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow and, in 2021, received a Special Congressional Recognition from Congresswoman Anna Eshoo. Aileen’s ecopoetry film, BREATHE, was an Official Selection in Copenhagen’s Nature & Culture Poetry Film Festival. She currently serves as the Poet Laureate of San Mateo County, California, the first Asian American and foreign-born poet appointed to the post. In that role, she has worked with local institutions such as the San Mateo County Office of Arts & Culture, the Office of Sustainability, the Office of Community Affairs, the San Mateo County Arts Commission, the Commission on the Status of Women, the LGBTQ Commission, the Peninsula Library System, San Mateo County Harbor District, Skyline College, College of San Mateo, local high schools, and nonprofits such as the Housing Leadership Council, Peninsula Family Service, and Filoli Her goal is to amplify the role of poetry in public life and discourse.
Aileen serves on the Board of Directors of the Daly City Public Library Associates and is publisher of the San Francisco Bay Area-based Paloma Press.
Judge’s Website
2021 Winners
- First Prize: Wendy Videlock of Palisade, CO
“Deconstruction” - Second Prize: Rafaella Del Bourgo of Berkeley, CA
“Lilacs” - Third Prize: Diane Lee Moomey of Half Moon Bay, CA
“Walking”
2021 Honorable Mentions
Heather Bourbeau of Berkeley, CA for “Pause”
Abby Caplin of San Francisco, CA for “On the Occasion of the Final Anatomy Exam”
Robert Eastwood of San Ramon, CA for E250 “Weatherford, Texas”
Terri Glass of Gasquet, CA for G111 “Autumn Haiku”
Louise Kantro of Modesto, CA for “Portrait of a Woman, Walking”
Diane Lee Moomey of Half Moon Bay, CA for “Sunday Morning: T’ai Chi Class”
Cecille Marcato of Austin, TX for “Love Letter from a Burning Building”
Christy Shepard of Berkeley, CA for “Skin and Water”
Lanette Sweeney of South Hadley, MA for “The Burn Mosaic”
Bethany Wallace of Batesville, AR for “Luck”