Fiction & Poetry Contests

2024 Wisconsin People & Ideas Poetry Contest

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Since 1994, Wisconsin People & Ideas magazine has sponsored the premiere annual fiction and poetry contests for Wisconsin writers. The contests are open to all Wisconsin residents and students age 18 and older.

Poetry

My Son Standing Near a Glass of Water

By

Sheryl Slocum

Tiny air bubbles pincushion the glasscatching rainbowsso perfectly full of light’s live handtouching also the hair and beardof the man he has become.

Poetry

Climate Passover

By

K.E. McCoy

Someday they will askWhat were they thinking?

When the car is hurtlingOff the overpassTowards the riverWhat is the child in the backseatThinkingExcept doors and windows?

Poetry

if I have an addiction to water, know that it’s hereditary

By

Taylor Kirby

i was baptized so many times, my familymust not have understood its action as rebirth.instead: accumulation. each time we broke

Fiction

Music Appreciation for Dead People

By

Matt Cashion

When I started this final exam reflection/exit essay (which I wonder if you’re even reading) I dialed up the Brahms Alto Rhapsody you played early this semester which you said was so beautiful it made some suicidal writer change his mind, so I gav

Fiction

Snow Door

By

Janice Wilberg

Hers is the last vehicle in the funeral home parking lot. Carol makes sure of that before she straps the brass urn with her husband’s ashes into the passenger seat of their pickup truck and sets off for their summer house on Lake Superior.

Poetry

Sun Black

By

Bruce Dethlefsen

I tried to read his favoritepoem at my son his funhis fune read at his funeralhe’d you see died there wasa motorcycle a sunny black motorcycleand red the blood his head was

Poetry

Neptune

By

Jess Parker

Before the moon, there was Neptune.And before that, one giant sky rock took

a bite from another, spitting in anger—a wet thud went to Earth who, spinning

Poetry

A Couple Months After My Father’s Death, I Read About Songbirds Mysteriously Dying in Pennsylvania

By

Alecia Beymer

What does this life requireof me. A constellationof sharp caution empties: emberscrackle in a nearby firepit. Texturedbranches seduce the night, considerthis was all you ever thought

Poetry

Of Genesis

By

Nicholas Gulig

The origin of every book is loss.There is not a word

in the beginningand language always listens

to its end. Tell mewhat has left its mark

upon the names you give to starsyou cannot see

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Fiction & Poetry Contests