Poetry Contest Winners

Previous winners

Every contest we publish the winning poem on Free the Verse. Read all past winners below.

Contests run

8

Awarded to poets

$800

Current open contests

2

All Contest Winners

Lute Man — Chiwenite Onyekwelu

      The man on the sidewalk drags
himself along the tar        hands steady
      on a lute          dust on his     shorts

Body — Gabriel Chavez

i lay there young buck sanctified your beached body in the way wanting knows

Eating Cats and Dogs — Kesper Wang

I look at my cat and wonder
If I’d eat him in case of some
apocalyptic event, or if he’d eat me

Safety First — Ping Yi Yee

Patent No. US3071856A protects the Safety Razor, property of one Irwin W. Fischbein of 18 Joyce Road, Hyde Park, Massachusetts.

After Rain — Madison Bertenshaw

I taste currents. Creosote, mud, agave, caliche, spines, javelina shit. You stab me like a cactus collecting the desert.

Anton in Summer — Natalie Susak

In class I learn the word for summer: ljeto. This summer: ljetos. This summer figs fall from trees

Aunty Nor — Farrah Lucia Jamaluddin

“If you are not a little bad from time to time
how can you learn to be a little good?”

A Wake — Keri Withington

I took the lake road home from the neurologist’s office.
    It’s pretty
    and I can’t
    deal with traffic

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