WFOP Contest Results

2021 Results

TRIAD CONTEST

There were 65 entries in the Poets’ Choice Contest and 52 in the theme contest. We received this lovely letter from the theme judge.

There were only 15 entries in the Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet Contest, which reflects the trend of numbers getting lower and lower each year. The committee discussed this when we updated the criteria years ago and came to the conclusion that there were few workshops, critique groups, and classes for beginning poets back when Kay was mentoring young writers, but now there are so many opportunities that the Fellowship has very few poets who identify themselves as “Emerging.” This is probably a good thing, but it makes for fewer entries in that category. Also, more than once an emerging winner has also placed in another category.

—Joan Wiese Johannes and Jeffrey Johannes, Triad Contest Co-chairs

Kay Saunders Memorial Emerging Poet Contest

1st Place:  Alecia Beymer for “Whispering in the Musee De L’Orangerie”
2nd Place:  Karen Haley for “in the pool that was my life”
3rd Place:  Stephanie Appel for “Sometimes I Prefer a Place”

Honorable Mention:
Karen Middleton for “Tree Pollen
Kippi Bednar for “River of Words”
Jeff Anderson for “Viola”

Poets’ Choice Contest

1st Place:  Emily Bowles for "Ice Queen, on [a] Pane”
2nd Place:  Lora Keller for “My First Orgasm”
3rd Place:  Abby Frucht for “Why They Call it a Broken Heart”

Honorable Mention:
Lynn Patrick Smith for “The Fragrance of Outer Space”
Alecia Beymer for “The Lake is Frozen Again”

Theme Contest: Forgiveness

1st Place: Nancy Jesse for “Seventeen”
2nd Place:  Annette Langlois Grunseth for “I Ask Again”
3rd Place: Cathryn Cofell for “My Father Never Forgave My Mother”

Honorable Mention:
Fredric L. Hildebrand for “My Brother”
Estella Lauter for “I wish there were someone I could forgive”
Charles Trimberger for “Smoke”

CHAPBOOK CONTEST

1st Place: Tori Grant Welhouse, Green Bay, for Vaginas Need Air
2nd Place: Peggy Trojan, Eau Claire, for River

1st Honorable Mention: Jessi Peterson, Eau Claire, for Century Farm
2nd Honorable Mention: Peggy Turnbull, Manitowoc, for The Joy of Their Holiness

James Armstrong, Chapbook Judge:

James Armstrong has published poems in Triquarterly, Gulf Coast, Orion, The Snowy Egret, The New York Times Book Review, Shade, Poetry East, Split Rock Review, Terrain,org, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry books, Monument in a Summer Hat (New Issues Press, 1999) and Blue Lash (Milkweed Editions, 2006) and is the co-author of a book of essays, Nature, Culture and Two Friends Talking (North Star Press 2015). Armstrong is a recipient of the PEN-New England Discovery Prize, an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship and a Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship in poetry. He is a Professor of English at Winona State University in Winona, Minnesota. He was Winona’s first Poet Laureate and is the director of the Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. Learn more about him.

Judge’s Comments:

"I enjoyed getting acquainted with such a wide variety of Wisconsin poets. It was interesting to note many common themes—such as the beauty of Wisconsin’s rural and wilderness areas, the importance of family, and the power of spirituality. Many of the chapbooks looked back, ruminating on childhood experiences or on the role of significant caregivers or life partners. There were very few urban poems, which I suppose is not surprising; on the other hand there were many poems about cabins, farm houses, and small towns, about lakes and rivers and encounters with animals.  I tried to pick out books that were distinguished not by their different subject matter but by their willingness to feel deeply and passionately about those subjects, to convey their settings and persons vividly." 
— James Armstrong, Ph.D., Winona State University, WFOP Chapbook Contest Judge for 2021

MUSE PRIZE

1st Place: “A Good Time for the Truth,” Kathleen Phillips
2nd Place: “The Broken Apple Tree,” Jeff Glover
3rd Place: “The Pelican,” David Southward

Honorable Mentions

”This is the Way We Live Now,” Judith Barisonzi
”Full Disclosure,” Bruce Taylor
”Dyskinesia,” Amy Phimister

Joyce Sutphen, Muse Prize Judge:

Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm in Steams County, Minnesota. Her first collection of poems, Straight Out of View, won the Barnard New Women Poets Prize; Coming Back to the Body was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and Naming the Stars won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry. In 2005, Red Dragonfly Press published Fourteen Sonnets in a letterpress edition. She is one of the co-editors of To Sing Along the Way, an award-winning anthology of Minnesota women poets. Her fourth collection, First Words, was published in 2010; in 2012, House of Possibility, a letter press edition of poems, was published by Accordion Press, followed by After Words, which was published in 2013, and Modern Love & Other Myths (2015), which was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award. Her recent books are The Green House, published by Salmon Poetry (Ireland) 2017, and Carrying Water to tile Field: New and Selected Poems, published by the University of Nebraska Press (2019). She is the second Minnesota Poet Laureate, succeeding Robert Bly, and she is professor emerita of literature at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota.

2020 Contest Results