2010 Winner
Information
The Akron Series in Poetry was founded to bring to the public writers who speak in original and compelling voices. Each year, The University of Akron Press offers the Akron Poetry Prize, a competition open to all poets writing in English. The winning poet receives $1,500 and publication of his or her book. The final selection will be made by a nationally prominent poet. The final judge for 2011 is Natasha Sajé. Other manuscripts may also be considered for publication in the series.
Guidelines for Submission
1. Manuscripts must be typed and consecutively numbered, for a total length of at least 48 pages. Clear photocopies are acceptable. Please, do not send manuscripts bound or enclosed in covers.
2. Manuscripts must include a cover page (with author's name, address, phone number, and manuscript title), a title page (with no biographical information), and an acknowledgements page listing poems previously published in periodicals. Please do not submit manuscripts that have the author's name on each page. Manuscripts go to the final judge blind.
3. Manuscripts must be postmarked between May 1 and June 15 of each year. Simultaneous submissions are permitted, but The University of Akron Press must be notified immediately if the manuscript is accepted elsewhere.
4. An entry fee of $25 is required for each manuscript submission. Make check or money order payable to The University of Akron Press. The canceled check will serve as notification of receipt.
5. Contest results will be posted on our website www.uakron.edu/uapress/poetryprizewinner by September 30. No manuscripts can be returned.
6. Books accepted for the Akron Series in Poetry must exhibit three essential qualities: mastery of language, maturity of feeling, and complexity of thought. The University of Akron Press is committed to publishing poetry that, as Robert Frost said, "begins in delight and ends in wisdom." Intimate friends, relatives, current and former students of the final judge (students in an academic, degree-conferring program or its equivalent) are not eligible to enter the Akron Poetry Prize competition.
Send manuscripts to:
The Akron Poetry Prize
The University of Akron Press
120 E. Mill Street, Suite 415
Akron, OH 443082011 Final Judge
Natasha Sajé’s first book of poems, Red Under the Skin (Pittsburgh, 1994), was chosen from over 900 manuscripts to win the Agnes Lynch Starrett prize, and was later awarded the Towson State Prize in Literature. Her second collection of poems, Bend, was published by Tupelo Press in 2004 and awarded the Utah Book Award in Poetry. Sajé was born in Munich, Germany, in 1955 and grew up in New York City and Northern New Jersey. She earned a B.A. from the University of Virginia, an M.A. from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park, for a study titled, "'Artful Artlessness': Reading the Coquette in the Novel, 1724-1913." Her honors include the Bannister Writer-in-Residence at Sweet Briar College, the Robert Winner and the Alice Fay di Castagnola Awards from the Poetry Society of America, the 2002 Campbell Corner Poetry Prize, a Fulbright Scholarship to Slovenia, a Camargo Fellowship in France, and grants from the states of Maryland and Utah; Sajé was a Maryland poet-in-the-schools 1989-1998. Her poems, reviews, and essays appear in many journals, including The Henry James Review; Kenyon Review; New Republic; Paris Review; Parnassus; Chelsea; Gettysburg Review; Legacy: Journal of American Women Writers; Ploughshares; Pool; and The Writer’s Chronicle. Sajé is a professor of English at Westminster College in Salt Lake City, where she administers the Weeks Poetry Series. She has been teaching in the Vermont College MFA in Writing Program since 1996.