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’s “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, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, 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, and she has curated submissions to Bay Area Generations, monthly literary competition.
ELISE SHABAS KAZANJIAN (San Francisco, CA) is a poet and writer whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Fog & Light: San Francisco Through The Eyes of the Poets Who Live Here, New Millennium Writings, Marin Poetry Center Anthology, A Kind of Hurricane Press, Ararat Magazine, and other publications. Among her honors, she is a winner of San Francisco’s Poets Eleven competition and The Chicagoland Poetry Contest. Elise has worked at Sunset Magazine, as the Foreign Editor of CCTV in Beijing, China, as the Administrator of August Coppola’s Audio Vision Project, at San Francisco State University, and she has even been a pawnbroker.
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”
2020 Honorable Mentions (in alphabetical order)
Carol Barrett of Bend, OR for “Thrippence”
Joan Gerstein of Oceanside, CA for “Morning Explorations”
Lynda LaRocca of Salida, CO for “The Writing-Workshop Instructor’s Instructions”
Robin Michel of San Francisco, CA for “The Coronavirus Spring of 2020” and “My Brother David’s Photograph”
Angie Minkin of San Francisco, CA for “Sheltering Home”
Grace Segran of Belmont, MA for “Party at #24 Sheriff Lane”
Colleen West of El Cerrito, CA for “Morning Walk on Stinson Beach in a Time of Global Unrest”