Elise Kazanjian & Ellen Woods Prose Poem Prize
First Prize: $100
Second Prize: $50
Third Prize: $25
Category Details
A prose poem should look like prose, no line breaks, and read like poetry. The Eastern Iowa Review puts it: “A Prose Poem is more than a narrative story told in a generic way; there is surprise in the language, variety in sentence length, but always the unexpected.” For an example, see Grace Marie Grafton “Daft”. Each prose poem 200 words or less single spaced, each on separate pages,three poems per entry. Amaze us.
About Judges/Sponsors
ELLEN WOODS (Oakland, CA) writes poetry and memoir. She is author of The Watchful Heart Recedes (Finishing Line Press 2022) and Warriors in Transition: A Memoir in Twenty-Eight Stories (Word Project Press 2014). Her poetry appears in print and online publications including Marin Poetry Center 2018 Anthology, The Bezine, Pudding Magazine, Is It Hot in Here Anthology, Persimmon Tree Magazine, and Poems of Political Protest: An Anthology, among others.
She has received prizes from the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition (2011-2014) and Mendocino Coast Writing Conference. Ellen has curated submissions to Bay Area Generations, monthly literary competition.
ELISE SHABAS KAZANJIAN (San Francisco, CA) is a poet and writer who spent the first decade of her life in Tian Jin, China where her father managed an American rug factory. She has worked at Sunset Magazine, as the Foreign Editor at CCTV in Beijing, China, the Administrator of August Coppola’s Audio Vision Project for the sight impaired at SF State University, and has been a pawnbroker. Her poems have been published in anthologies and journals including Poets Eleven, New Millennium Writings, A Kind of Hurricane Press, and Minute Magazine. She has won awards from Chicago land Poetry Contest, and the Soul-Making Keats Literary Competition. Her essays have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, and her book reviews in the San Francisco Examiner. She is a member of the Wednesday Women Writers, a group of writers who have been meeting for over ten years.
Judges’ Websites
Ellen Woods
Elise Kazanjian
Elise Kazanjian’s Facebook page
2020 Winners
- First Prize: Angie Minkin of San Francisco, CA
“Every Tear a Prayer” - Second Prize: Sandra Anfang of Petaluma, CA
“Gorilla Dreams” - Third Prize: Laure-Anne Bosselaar of Santa Barbara, CA
“Monsieur Lebon Delivers Groceries to the Convent, Brussels, Late 1940s”