ANNOUNCING THE WINNERS OF THE WISCONSIN PEOPLE & IDEAS / WISCONSIN BOOK FESTIVAL 2010 POETRY CONTEST!
Our 2010 winners, from top to bottom: Smith, Kolosso, Dale
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- 1st Place: "The Only Tavern in Hyde, Wisconsin," by Austin Smith - Arena
- 2nd Place: "Stoneboat," by Judy Kolosso - Slinger
- 3rd Place: "Being Carbon-based Creatures," by Kathleen Dale - Milwaukee
Read their prizewinning poems here!
Don't forget to vote for the next Wisconsin Poet Laureate! The two-year term of service will begin on January 1, 2011. The deadline for applications and nominations is Friday, June 11, 2010.
Click here for nomination details.
Every year
Wisconsin People & Ideas is pleased to host a statewide poetry contest. The annual contest brings out the best of Wisconsin poets-both amateur and professional-and places a spotlight on one of our finest cultural resources. This year we are again fortunate to have as our partner in the contest the Wisconsin Book Festival. The Wisconsin Book Festival is the main pillar in support of the operation of the contest, as well as a much-appreciated partner who brings attention to our winning poets with a reading during their annual event. Other support for the contest comes from Abella Studios, Avol's Bookstore, and Edenfred, the creative arts residency of the Terry Family Foundation.
This year submissions arrived from around the state, filling the Wisconsin Academy mailbox with over six hundred poems. Under the skillful coordination of our poetry editor, John Lehman, contest judges B.J. Best, Tom Montag, and Lester Smith, along with our esteemed lead judge and former editor of
Free Verse (now
Verse Wisconsin), Linda Aschbrenner, sifted through stacks and stacks of poems to find our three award winners. This magazine owes our judges a debt of gratitude for their contributions to both the contest and the poetry community at large.
The top three poets were announced in March of 2010 and sent cash and other prizes, as well as a standing invitation to read their award-winning poems during the Wisconsin Book Festival in October 2010. In addition, the winning poems-along with another by each poet, selected by John Lehman-appear in this issue of the magazine. We invite you to enjoy these poems, and we hope you will stay tuned as we publish the runners up-all admirable in their own right-in the forthcoming issues of the
Wisconsin People & Ideas and here on our website. Thank you from all of use here at
Wisconsin People & Ideas for yet another great contest.
RUNNERS-UP (alphabetical order):
- "That Summer," Karla Huston, Appleton
- "Thoughts of Lace," Kinzy Janssen, Eau Claire
- "Remembering Woolworth's," Andrea Potos, Madison
- "3 or 4 Things I Know about History," by Rita May Reese, Madison
- "Yes, She's a Jazz Singer," Richard Roe, Middleton
- "He Was From," E. P. Schultz, Soldiers Grove
- "Graveyard Shift," Shoshauna Shy, Madison
- "The third wish always taking the form of a retraction," Chris Taylor, Baraboo
- "Last Love Letter to 5 a.m.," Casey Thayer, Madison
- "The Birth Canal," Patricia Zontelli, Menomonie
