Posted on January 21, 2026January 21, 2026 by kpdavis

Arthur Smith Poetry Prize – 2025

The winners have been named and notified for the 2025 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize. We hope you will join us in congratulating them.

The 2025 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winners

“All six books [on the shortlist] had strengths, but I kept coming back to these two.”–Jeff Hardin

2025 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winner Medallion

A Heart that Stretches the Length of the Body by David Prather

Winner

David B. Prather is the author of three poetry collections: We Were Birds (Main Street Rag, 2019), Shouting at an Empty House (Sheila-Na-Gig Editions, 2023), and Bending Light with Bare Hands: A Journal of Poems (Fernwood Press, 2025). His work has appeared in many publications, including New Ohio Review, Prairie Schooner, Colorado Review, Poet Lore, The Comstock Review, etc. He lives in Parkersburg, WV. Website: www.davidbprather.com

Silver Medallion that says 2025 Arthur Smith poetry prize runner up

My Out-Migrations by Elaine Palencia

Poet Elaine Fowler Palencia. She is a white woman of indeterminate age with dark hair and glasses. She offers a welcoming smile and wears red lipstick to match her red top.

First Runner Up

Elaine Fowler Palencia grew up in Morehead, KY, and Cookeville, TN. She is the author of six books of fiction, four poetry chapbooks, and two works of nonfiction. Her most recent book is On Rising Ground: The Life and Civil War Letters of John M. Douthit, 52nd Georgia Volunteer Infantry Regiment (Mercer U. Press), about her great-great grandfather. Her work has received eight Pushcart Prize nominations and other prizes. She is the book review editor of Pegasus, journal of the Kentucky State Poetry Society, and the longtime moderator of the Red Herring Prose Workshop. Much of her writing is place-based.

Shortlist

This list of Six titles was selected by our preliminary readers, Karen George and Brian Griffin. And we thank them dearly for their time and attention over the months of submissions.

When Body Becomes House by Dianna Henning
Learning to Talk to Birds by Gregory Byrd
A Heart that Stretches the Length of the Body by David Prather (Winner!!!)
My Out-Migrations by Elaine Palencia (1st Runner Up!!!)
Holy Nothing by Beth Anstandig
Bodies of Water by Mary Hawley

Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winners

This page links to all the books we have out that have won our annual poetry prize named for beloved Appalachian poet, Arthur Smith. To read about the 2024 winners currently in production and to find out when we are accepting submissions for consideration, visit THIS PAGE.

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Judges for 2025

Tennessee poet, Jeff Hardin. You can just see him from the neck up staring at the camera with a straight, close-lipped mouth. He stands under a tree with green leaves for a background.

Our head judge for 2025 was Jeff Hardin, a long-time friend of Arthur Smith. Jeff made the hard hard decision about which collections should be the “winners.” All three judges said they were truly impressed with the quality of the submissions, which made the decisions really difficult. (Thanks so much to all who submitted!)

Jeff Hardin is the author of seven collections of poetry, most recently Watermark, A Clearing Space in the Middle of Being, No Other Kind of World, and Small Revolution. His work has been honored with the Nicholas Roerich Prize, the Donald Justice Poetry Prize, and the X. J. Kennedy Prize. Originally from Savannah, Tennessee, he has taught for almost three decades at Columbia State Community College in Columbia, Tennessee.

Photo: A. J. Holmes

Karen George is author of the poetry collections Swim Your Way Back (2014), A Map and One Year (2018), Where Wind Tastes Like Pears (2021), Caught in the Trembling Net (2024), and forthcoming Delight Is a Field. She won Slippery Elm’s 2022 Poetry Contest, and her award-winning short story collection, How We Fracture, was released by Minerva Rising Press in 2024. She is the recipient of grants from Kentucky Foundation for Women and Kentucky Arts Council. Her poetry appears in The Ekphrastic Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Lily Poetry Review, and Poet Lore. Her latest book Caught in the Trembling Net, published by Kelsay Books, was inspired by the art, life, and writings of Frida Kahlo, Georgia, O’Keeffe, and Emily Carr. Her website is https://karenlgeorge.blogspot.com/.

Brian Griffin holds an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Virginia. A former Director of Lifespan Religious Education at Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, he has taught at The University of Virginia, The University of Tennessee, and Pellissippi State Community College. His fiction and poetry appears in a number of literary journals, including Shenandoah, Mississippi Review, New Millennium Writings, Asheville Poetry Review, Southern Poetry Review, Poems and Plays, Snake Nation Review, Clockwatch Review, New Delta Review, The Distillery, Mixitini Matrix, A Tapestry of Voices: An East Tennessee Anthology, Knoxville Bound, Metro Pulse, Number Inc, and elsewhere. He received the Mary McCarthy Award for Short Fiction for his collection Sparkman in the Sky and Other Stories. Single Lens Reflex, his collection of poems about surviving a domestic terrorist attack, was a finalist in the 2018 National Poetry Series. It was published in 2024 by Iris Press.

Posted on April 10, 2025April 11, 2025 by kpdavis

2024 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winners

Art Smith Poetry Prize 2024

We are running slightly behind schedule with this, but we are thrilled to announce that we have a winner of the Arthur Smith Poetry Prize for 2024! With 110 total submissions, and only three people reading, it took us a little while. The work was all so very good.

The Winners

Animal Psalm – THE WINNER
by DeAnna Stephens

Stephens’s work has appeared in numerous journals including Cherry Tree, Feminist Studies, and Louisiana Literature and has been nominated twice for the Pushcart Prize. Additionally, her work has received the George Scarbrough Prize for Poetry (Mountain Heritage Literary Festival), the Sue Ellen Hudson Excellence in Writing Award from Tennessee Mountain Writers, the Tusculum Review Poetry Prize, and the Tennessee Williams Festival Poetry Prize. She is the author of a chapbook, Heliotaxis, (Main Street Rag), and was inducted into the East Tennessee Writers Hall of Fame in 2022. She currently serves as a reader for Rowayat and teaches writing, reading, and literature at Roane State Community College in Crossville, Tennessee.

No Lace Fronts in Iowa City – FIRST RUNNER UP
by Meghan Malachi

Meghan B. Malachi is a Bronx-born, Chicago-based poet and educator. She is an Associate Editor at RHINO and the Programming Coordinator at the Guild Literary Complex. Meghan is the first-place winner of the Spoon River Poetry Review 2022 Editor’s Prize Contest and a 2022 Pushcart Prize Nominee. She has also been a finalist for the 2024 Hillary Tham Capital Collection as well as the 2024 Lois Cranston Memorial Prize. Her work is published in Milly Magazine, Rabid Oak, Juked, NECTAR Poetry, Writers with Attitude, and NewCity. Her first chapbook, The Autodidact, was published by Ethel Zine & Micro Press in 2020. She teaches rhetoric and writing at Harold Washington College and Saint Xavier University.

The Rest of the Shortlist

Meuse is So Close to Muse by Elinor Ann Walker
On Men by Esperanza Cintrón
Sometimes I Forget How to Be a Person by Peter Grandbois
Titanfall by Noah Soltau

The Longlist

Animal Psalm by DeAnna Stephens
Causa Sui by Elizabeth Knapp
Meuse is So Close to Muse by Elinor Ann Walker
No Lace Fronts in Iowa City by Meghan Malachi
Notes on Endings by Clare Banks
On Men by Esperanza Cintrón
Sometimes I Forget How to Be a Person by Peter Grandbois
The 574 Calling Area’s Been Hit By the Blast by David Dodd Lee
Titanfall by Noah Soltau
What the Light Was Like by Sara Dudo

Our 2024 Judges

The winning poet receives a $1,000 advance, a standard royalty contract, and 10 copies of the published book. Finalists will also be considered for future publication.

Judge: Allison Joseph
Readers: Edison Jennings and Shlagha Borah

Read about previous Arthur Smith Poetry Prize winners

Posted on May 23, 2024June 1, 2025 by kpdavis

Arthur Smith Poetry Prize (2024)

The Arthur Smith Poetry Prize opens again for submissions on June 1, 2025. We find it hard to believe this will already be our fifth such competition. Read more about the Arthur Smith Poetry Prize.

Accepting Submissions June 1 through September 30, 2025.
Winners will be announced in January 2026
Winning poet receives: a $1,000 advance; a standard royalty contract +10 gratis copies of the book when it is completed.
Finalists will also be considered for future publication.

4th Annual Arthur Smith Poetry Prize (2024)

Thanks to our 2024 Judge: Allison Joseph, and our tireless Readers: Edison Jennings and Shlagha Borah. And without further ado, here are the winners!

Animal Psalm – THE WINNER
by DeAnna Stephens

No Lace Fronts in Iowa City – FIRST RUNNER UP by Meghan Malachi

The Rest of the Shortlist

Meuse is So Close to Muse
by Elinor Ann Walker
On Men
by Esperanza Cintrón
Sometimes I Forget How to Be a Person
by Peter Grandbois
Titanfall by Noah Soltau

The Longlist

What the Light Was Like by Sara Dudo
Animal Psalm by DeAnna Stephens
Causa Sui by Elizabeth Knapp
Meuse is So Close to Muse by Elinor Ann Walker
No Lace Fronts in Iowa City by Meghan Malachi
Notes on Endings by Clare Banks
On Men by Esperanza Cintrón
Sometimes I Forget How to Be a Person by Peter Grandbois
The 574 Calling Area’s Been Hit By the Blast by David Dodd Lee
Titanfall by Noah Soltau

Competition Guidelines

Eligibility: We will be happy to receive work by any poet writing in English. Poems published in print or online periodicals, anthologies, or chapbooks may be included, but the manuscript itself must be unpublished. Original work only; translations are ineligible.
Format: Minimum of 48 pages. There is no maximum length, but we expect manuscripts not to be much more than 90 pages. Pages should be numbered with no more than one poem per page. Please include a title page with title only, a table of contents, and an acknowledgments page.
Simultaneous Submissions: Simultaneous submissions are acceptable. Please notify Madville Publishing immediately if your manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
Multiple Submissions: Submission of more than one manuscript is acceptable, but each manuscript must be submitted separately and include a separate entry fee.
International Submissions: We accept international submissions.
Revisions: The winner will have the opportunity to revise the manuscript before publication. No revisions will be considered during the reading period.
SUBMISSIONS SHOULD BE BLIND. PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE AUTHOR NAME ANYWHERE ON THE MANUSCRIPT.
Entry Fee: $25
Deadline: September 30, 2024
Winner will be announced January 2025.

Posted on February 22, 2024March 21, 2024 by kpdavis

2023 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Winners

We received 74 total submissions. The first round was read by Joshua Robbins and Darius Stewart. Winners were chosen from a shortlist of amazing work by final judge, Marilyn Kallet, Knoxville Poet Laureate from June 27th, 2018-July 2020. For more information about the contest and the judges, visit The Arthur Smith Poetry Prize Submission Page.

Winner

Amanda Chimera, by Mary B Moore

Mary B. Moore’s five poetry books include Dear If, Orison Books 2022; Flicker, Dogfish Head Prize 2016; The Book Of Snow, Cleveland State U Poetry Center 1998; the prize-winning chapbooks are Amanda and the Man Soul 2017, and Eating the Light 2016.

Mary’s poems appear lately in Birmingham Poetry Review (BPR), Poetry, Prairie Schooner, NELLE, Nimrod, Gettysburg Review, Terrain, and more. She has won Birmingham Review’s Collins Prize and NELLE’s Three Sisters Award, and she won second place in Nimrod’s 2017 Pablo Neruda Award, and third in Terrain’s awards.

Runner Up

Incidental Pollen, by Ellen Austin-Li

Ellen Austin-Li’s work appears in Artemis, Thimble Literary Magazine, The Maine Review, Salamander, Lily Poetry Review, Rust + Moth, and many other places. Finishing Line Press published her chapbooks—Firefly (2019) & Lockdown: Scenes From Early in the Pandemic (2021).

Ellen is a Best of the Net nominee. A Martin B. Bernstein Fellowship recipient, she earned an MFA in Poetry at the Solstice Low-Residency Program. Ellen co-founded the monthly reading series, “Poetry Night at Sitwell’s,” in Cincinnati, where she lives with her husband in a newly empty nest. You can find her at www.ellenaustinli.me.

Honorable Mention

Red Camaro, by Dwaine Rieves

Thanks much for reading and considering Red Camaro…very kind…all best.

Dwaine Rieves is a medical imaging scientist in Washington, DC. His collection, When the Eye Forms, won the Tupelo Press Prize for Poetry.

Short List

Four Junes, by Sara Dudo
The Ugliest Girl in Columbiana County, by Elizabeth Tussey
Kentucky Pathways, by David Cazden
Everywhere, Everywhere, by Jeffrey Bean
A Legacy of Birds, by Sharon Ackerman

Previous Winners

2022

The winner: a poem is a house, linda ravenswood

a poem is a house pushes against the borders of poetry to emphasize how all borders are a construct: geopolitical, literary, and personal. Each poem in this outstanding collection reinvents itself, employing a range of forms, such as visual poems and broken poetry cycles, to recreate vivid details of the speaker’s experiences as someone who grew up in California with Mexican ancestry. Readers experience a state of bardo,
a sense of existing between states: between different cultures, between safety and violence, and perhaps most of all, between past and present. Like memory itself, these poems thrive on elision, repetition, and reversal. a poem is a house is a dazzling accomplishment that presents a new and unique poetic vision. —Charlotte Pence, final judge for the 2022 Arthur Smith Poetry Prize, and author of Code

The runner-up: Tasting Flight: Poems by Yiskah Rosenfeld

A yearning dominates the vibrant poems in Tasting Flight, specifically the desire to be enough. Of course, though, one is always enough. The observant, insightful, and confident speaker in these poems knows this truth intellectually but searches to
internalize such knowledge. All of the poems are deeply rooted in the lyrical tradition, following the switchbacks and curves of a mind always in motion, perhaps contemplating the beauty of moths at night or the intricacies of raising a child. Whatever the subject, Tasting Flightis a book that sings back to the exploding
stars. —Charlotte Pence, author of Code and judge for the 2022 Arthur Smith Prize

2021

The winner: The Parting Glass: Poems by Lisa J. Parker

The Parting Glass, like the old Irish song, is a toast to the places and people who make up the author’s roots and base. However Appalachian at its root, it tells a universal story about what grounds and keeps us, even as we move in cities and circles far from home. At its core, this book brings the thread of downhome with its voices and song, to the cities and cultures the author moves through. The poems raise a glass to those still at the table and to those already gone, to homecomings and deployments, to the navigation of love and grief.

Category: Contest

Arthur Smith Poetry Prize – 2025