A prize of $1,000 plus book publication by Kore Press

2013 Judge: Nikky Finney
2011 National Book Award for poetry winner for Head Off & Split

This competition is open each year to any female writer who has not published a
full-length collection of poetry. Writers who have had chapbooks of less than

42 pages printed in editions of no more than 400 copies are eligible.

How to Submit Your Manuscript

The contest will reopen mid-May. Next submission deadline August 2013.

At that time you can submit your manuscript and 25 reading fee on-line here.

Comment box should include:

• daytime and evening telephone numbers
• where you heard about the contest
  
  

Manuscripts must be:
• a minimum of 48 pages and a maximum of 80 pages. no cover letter needed.
• anonymous (do not include your name anywhere on the manuscript)
• original poetry written by applicant (translations are not eligible)

For more information email us or call 520-327-2127.

Nikky Finney's National Book Awards Acceptance Speech for Poetry

November 16, 2011

Cipriani's New York, New York

One: We begin with history. The Slave Codes of SC, 1739: "a fine of one hundred dollars and six months in prison will be imposed for anyone found teaching a slave to read, or write, and death is the penalty for circulating any incendiary literature."

The ones who longed to read and write, but were forbidden, who lost hands and feet, were killed, by laws written by men who believed they owned other men. Their words devoted to quelling freedom and insurgency, imagination, all hope; what about the possibility of one day making a poem? The king's mouth and the queen's tongue arranged, perfectly, on the most beautiful paper, sealed with wax and palmetto tree sap, determined to control what can never be controlled: the will of the human heart to speak its own mind.

Tonight, these forbidden ones move all around the room as they please. They sit at whatever table they want. They wear camel-colored field hats and tomato- red kerchiefs. They are bold in their Sunday-go-to-meeting best. Their cotton croker-sack shirts are black washpot clean and irreverently not tucked in. Some have even come in white Victorian collars and bustiers. Some have just climbed out of the cold wet Atlantic, just to be here. We shiver together.

If my name is ever called out, I promised my girl-poet self, so too would I call out theirs.

Two: Parneshia Jones (Acquisitions Editor), Marianne Jankowski (Art Director), and Northwestern University Press, this moment has everything to do with how seriously, how gorgeously, you do what you do.

A.J. Verdelle, editor-partner in this language life, you taught me that repetition is holy, Courage is a daughter's name, and two is stronger than one.

Papa, chief opponent of the death penalty in South Carolina for 50 years, 57 years married to the same Newberry girl, when I was a girl you bought every encyclopedia, dictionary, and Black history tome, that ever knocked on our Oakland Avenue door.

Mama, dear mama, Newberry girl, 57 years married to the same Smithfield boy, you made Christmas, Thanksgiving, and birthdays out of foil, lace, cardboard, and paper maché, insisting beauty into our deeply segregated southern days.

Adrienne Rich, Yusef Komunyakaa, Carl Philips, and Bruce Smith, simply to be in your Finalist Company is to brightly burn.

National Book Foundation and 2011 National Book Award judges for poetry, there were special, and subversive, high school English teachers who would read and announce the highly anticipated annual report, from the National Book Foundation; the names of the winners stowed way down deep in some dusty corner of our tiny southern newspaper.

Dr. Gloria Wade Gayles, great and best teacher, you asked me on a Friday, 4 oclock, 1977, I was 19 and sitting on a Talladega College wall dreaming about the only life I ever wanted, that of a poet. Miss Finney, you said, do you really have time to sit there, have you finished reading every book in the library?

Dr. Katie Cannon, what I heard you say once still haunts every poem I make, Black People were the only people in the United States ever explicitly forbidden to become literate.

I am now, officially, speechless.

Nikky Finney

(from http://www.nikkyfinney.net)

Ethics Statement

We endorse and agree to comply with the following statement released by the Council of Literary Magazines and Presses:

CLMP's community of independent literary publishers believes that ethical contests serve our shared goal: to connect writers and readers by publishing exceptional writing. We believe that intent to act ethically, clarity of guidelines, and transparency of process form the foundation of an ethical contest. To that end, we agree to:

1) conduct our contests as ethically as possible and to address any unethical behavior on the part of our readers, judges, or editors;

2) provide clear and specific contest guidelines -- defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and

3) make the mechanics of our selection process available to the public.

This Code recognizes that different contest models produce different results, but that each model can be run ethically. We have adopted this Code to reinforce our integrity and dedication as a publishing community and to ensure that our contests contribute to a vibrant literary heritage.