Award: $500

Judge for 2012: Aracelis Girmay

The winner & three finalists will read their poems at the Judge's reading

at Smith College on April 9th 2013.

Submissions accepted: September 1 - December 1, 2012

One poem per student, maximum of 25 lines.

No entry fee. Application form required.

Winners will be announced March, 2013.

In addition to the cash prize awarded to the winner, she and the three finalists will receive signed copy of Kingdom Animalia, by Aracelis Girmay. The winner and finalists will also spend the day at Smith College, meeting privately with Ms. Girmay to discuss their poetry and presenting their winning work at her evening reading.

The Poetry Center at Smith College was founded in 1998 with the goals of bringing distinguished poets to the College, creating a video archive of their readings, promoting an appreciation of poetry in the larger community through outreach to schools. The Poetry Center celebrates Smith’s long and illustrious relationship with such world-renowned poets as Sylvia Plath, W.H. Auden, Richard Wilbur, and Adrienne Rich.

About the Judge

Aracelis Girmay is the author of the picture book changing, changing and the poetry collections Teeth and Kingdom Animalia, for which she was awarded the Isabella Gardner Award, given biennially to a poet in midcareer with a new book of exceptional merit. Girmay weaves her multicultural heritage—Eritrean, Puerto Rican and African American—into a distinct voice that Martín Espada has called “brave, lyrical, fiery, joyful.” A Cave Canem fellow, Girmay taught youth writing workshops in schools and
community centers for many years; currently, she is on the faculty at Hampshire College and the low-residency MFA program at Drew University.

Past judges: Eavan Boland * Naomi Shihab Nye * Sharon Olds

View the 2012 winners

View the 2011 winners

View the 2010 winners

View the 2009 winners

View the 2008 winners

View the 2007 winners

From Sylvia Plath's journal, Smith College, April 27, 1953