Winners 2007
First Place: Luisa A. Igloria, Venom
Second Place: Gail Thomas, Learning to Walk Again
Third Place: Marianne Patty, The Only Mermaid on the Moon
Finalists 2007
Robert Abbate, Tishbite Pottery Fragments
Susan Elbe, Some Music
Rebecca Foust, Strip Mine
Jessica Garratt, Woman Drives Past, Crying
Paula Goldman, If Dickinson Had a Husband and Wrote Villanelles
Christine A. Gruber, When the Time Comes, I Wish to Die in June
Terry Hertzler, Not Quite Deja Vu
Michael Kriesel, Zen Amen
Melody Lacina, Copy Editing the Catalogue Raisonne of George Inness
Karen Lieneke, The Memory of Water
Mark Minster, Krasnyi Ugol (The Beautiful Corner)
Erin Murphy, City Birds Are Losing Their Songs
Sean Nevin, The Black Carpenter Bee
Robert Peake, Radish
Jane B. Rawlings, Dawn, Leaving Venice
Faith Shearin, Smoke
Tana Jean Welch, Locusts Are Swarming

Winners 2006
First Place: Jeanne Emmons, Polio Water in 1955
Second Place: Patrick Rosal, Poem for My Extra Nipple 
Third Place: Mariette Landry, Tanning
Honorable Mention: Natalie Diaz, Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation 
Finalists 2006
Amanda Auchter, Dragonfly on Blue Agave
Jacqueline Berger, The Routine After Forty
Arlene Distler, Cleaning the Octopus
Stephen Larson, Coming Back for the Horses
Michael Lauchlan, Writing the Light
Jenifer Browne Lawrence, Vigils
Jeffrey Ethan Lee, After she said, “You can work around me” somehow he knew
Jasmine Paul, one girl’s winter
Pamela Porter, Unpacking
Margaret Rabb, Triassic Escarpment
Susan Rich, Self-Portrait with Trampoline
Helen Klein Ross, Sitting Backward, We Move Unstoppably Forward
Victoria Sloan, Orbweaver
Wyatt Townley, Striptease
 
Winners 2005
First Place: Joyce Thomas, Fishes
Second Place: Timothy Walsh, Blue Lace Colander
Third Place: Kelli Russel Agodon, Z to A: Secret Confessions of an Alphabet Junkie 
Honorable Mention: Annette Spaulding-Convy, I bring my newborn to the convent 
Honorable Mention: Kristen Tracy, Sometimes this Happens 
Finalists 2005
Roy Bentley, Woman and Alligator
J. Lorraine Brown, Intermission at a Reading by Galway Kinnell
Deborah DeNicola, Gauguin’s Red
Linda Dove, Labor Day Pie  
Raynette Eitel, Melanoma Butterfly
Jim Fisher, At the Biotech Party
Mary Fitzpatrick, The Cure
Albert Garcia, The Sea of Galilee and the Sacramento River
Steve Gehrke, Renoir, Arthritic
Alex Grant, Beginning Poet Critique
Kenneth Hart, Tick
Ian Christopher Hooper, Formula on a White and Empty Page
Una Nichols Hynum, Genealogy of War
David James, The Poet Chokes Himself Up
Jeffrey Ethan Lee, After a Painting by Antonio Salemme (1892-1995)
James P. Lenfestey, She who thinks like a fish thinks
Elizabeth M. Maloney, Praying for Maintenance
Arthur McMaster, Interior Rhymes
Maureen McQuerry, Grace
Nadine Meyer, Over Vitebsk
Kevin Nance, Smoke
Evan Oakley, My Deaf Man
Glenn Pape, Belly
Elisa Pulido, Trogloditophobia
Sheila Harken Rosecrans, A Bookstore on Valencia Street
Diane Seuss, In Search of the Molecular Structure of Benzene
Rachel M. Simon, Rules of Poetry
Andrew Sofer, Picasso’s Saltimbanques 
Michael Spence, Alien in Allentown
Shirley Stephenson, Handling Protocol
Ted Taylor, Haephestus
Patti White, Laika  

Winners 2004
First Place: Andrea Potos, Each Self
Second Place: Angela Narciso Torres, Thursdays After Dinner at L’amie Donia
Third Place: Marea Gordett, Autistic Child in the Day School 
Finalists 2004
Nathalie F. Anderson, Squeeze
Brittney C. Blaskowitz, Mistress Mango
Cindhy Briano, You Make Love Like a Pinball Machine
Deborah Brown, How She Lived
John P. Buentello, Father Found in the Rending Room
Rachel Dacus, Drake’s Estero, Point Reyes
Frank Eannarino, Social Work
Deborah Fries, Arriving at X
Kate Gray, Turquoise Sestina
Peter Klein, The Trapeze Artist Resigns
Elline Lipkin, Philomela’s Tongue
Eileen Malone, Words with Taloned Claws
Mario René Padilla, Once, I Wanted to be Richie Vallens
Stephen R. Porter, corn
Joseph Sabado, Yellow Light
Farnoosh Seifoddini, Pre-Maternity
Tamara Kaye Sellman, Stubborn Tourist

Winners 2003
First Place: Derek Sheffield, Ornithology 101
Second Place: Ellen Bass, Discovering Fire 
Third Place: Lilian Crutchfield, Gayle, Descending
Honorable Mention: Emmy Pérez, Ghazal For Los Muertos
Honorable Mention: John E. Smelcer, After a Sermon at the Church of Infinite Confusion 
Finalists 2003
Elinor Benedict, Mother by Moonlight
F.J. Bergmann, An Apology
Margaret J. Hoehn, Georgia O’Keeffe Writers Her Friends: “I Won’t Return to New York”
Angela Kelly, In the Kitchen
Jim McGarrah, Generation Gap
Cynthia L. Monroe, The Sculptor’s Model
Ander Monson, Cancer Season
Susan Azar Porterfield, Kibbe
Noelle Rydell, Adulteress in Autumn
Trey Selma, The Arabic Script
J. Shipley, Breath
David Shumate, Poems That Can Only Be Written at Night
Beth Copeland Vargo, Canzone
Amanda Walter, Ladies’ War
Carolyne Wright, Blue Mitosis

Winners 2002
First Place: Ann Hunkins, Eating Meat
Second Place: Lynda Skeen, Oyster-Shucking Contest
Third Place: Carol Vanderveer Hamilton, Aesthetics and Politics
Honorable Mention: Allison Joseph, A History of African-American Hair
Honorable Mention: Michael Larson, Aquinas at the Last
Finalists 2002
Curtis Bauer, Landscape with Leaves
Andrea Carter Brown, The Robin’s Nest
Melanie Drane, Angioplasty
James Hall, Chopin’s Prelude in E-minor
Karin Hoffecker, Geisha
Christina Hutchins, The Poet to Her Poems
Susan Kelly-DeWitt, My Mother at Evening
Diane Lockward, Eating my Words
Mary Makofske, In a Book on Neolithic Wounds
Barbara M. Seagle, Generic

Winners 2001
First Place: Jeffrey Levine, Mazurka
Second Place: Salita Bryant, Damage
Third Place: Debra Marquart, Within Moments
Finalists 2001
Lisa Marie Brodsky, Birds in the Mediterranean Speak Like Syrup
Karen E. Drayne, Wedding Negatives
Susan Firer, Hsuan T’sao
Deborah Fries, Photo of Father as Cowboy
Ralph Frongillo, Private Place
Ross Gay, Alzheimer’s
Ann Hudson, Galileo Explains Why Aristotle Was Wrong About the Heavens
A. Van Jordan, Notes From a Southpaw
Richard Levine, Touch the Safe
Kwala Mandel, Angola
David Martin, Saturday Night, 1976
James McGarrah, Black Ice
Andrew Mulvania, Blackberry-Picking
Kristin Naca, What I Don’t Tell My Children About the Philippines
Nancy Nicodemus, Grandmother Maude’s Diary
Laurie Robertson-Lorant, Melville Continues his Classical Education in the South Seas
Lucy Warlick, Guilt
 
James Hearst Poetry Prize Winners
 
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