The Idaho Prize for Poetry

The final judge for the 2010 Idaho Prize for Poetry is Thomas Lux.

The Idaho Prize is an annual, national competition offering $1,000 plus publication by Lost Horse Press for a book-length poetry manuscript. Manuscripts are accepted for review before May 15 of each year, and on 15 August, a winner is announced.

In addition to announcements in national publications, the winning book and author will be featured on the Lost Horse Press website, along with a list of the finalists.

Lost Horse Press adheres to the CLMP Code of Ethics:

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) to provide clear and specific contest guidelines—defining conflict of interest for all parties involved; and 3) to 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.

ALL US POETS ELIGIBLE!

Contest Deadline: Entries must be postmarked by May 15th
Winners Announced: August 15th
$1,000 cash prize, plus publication by Lost Horse Press
Entry fee: $25 check or money order only, please.

Send submissions to:

The Idaho Prize
Lost Horse Press
105 Lost Horse Lane
Sandpoint, Idaho 83864

Send manuscripts of 48 or more pages of poetry, no more than one poem per page, no smaller than 12 point type in an easily readable font. Poems may have appeared in journals and chapbooks, but not in full-length, single-author collections.

Name, address, phone number, e-mail address, and title of poetry collection must appear on the cover letter only. The goal is “blind” judging. Author’s name should not appear anywhere in manuscript except the cover letter.

No restriction on content, style, or subject—we’re looking for the best manuscript.

All checks or money orders for entry fee—$25—should be made payable to Lost Horse Press. Submissions without a reading fee enclosed will not be considered. A $50 fee will be charged for returned checks.

Include SASE (number #10 business envelope) with sufficient postage for notification of finalists and winner. Manuscripts will be recycled. We are sorry but manuscripts cannot be returned.

If manuscripts arrive postage due, they will be returned.

Use white, lightweight paper. Quality paper won’t impress readers the way a quality manuscript will.

Typed and printed on one side of the paper only. No handwriting should appear anywhere on the manuscript.

Entries submitted by e-mail or fax are not permitted and will be disqualified.

The Winner of the 2009 Idaho Prize Announced

Lost Horse Press is pleased to announce the winner of the 2009 Idaho Prize for Poetry is Frescoes by Stephen Gibson. This year’s selection was chosen by final judge, Seattle poet Carolyne Wright.

"In Frescoes, Stephen Gibson assumes the charge of the engaged tourist, paying his entry fee to the chapels and basilicas of Renaissance Florence and Padua and Rome in order to enter in to much more subversive premises: to see through the pigmented plaster and marble facades to the real-life consequences of original sin and human depravity depicted in these treasures of High Art. Gibson is a wised-up pilgrim in sanctuaries whose faith he cannot share.
 
"Harsh and highly accomplished, these poems redeem the people from the paint, plaster and piety. They pull victims and perpetrators alike out of the history and myth of the treasures of Great Arts into the arena of our ongoing moral dilemmas, our struggles for survival as well as for the preservation of compassion and decency in a perennially fallen human world."
 

—Carolyne Wright, from the judge’s introduction

Stephen Gibson was born and raised in New York City where he met W.H. Auden, who became an important influence on his work, and studied at Syracuse University with W.D. Snodgrass, who became another important influence. His previous poetry collections are Masaccio’s Expulsion, selected by Andrew Hudgins as winner of the Robert E. Lee and Ruth I. Wilson Poetry Book Award from MARGIE/IntuiT House, Rorschach Art from Red Hen Press, and the chapbook Bodies in the Bog, published by Texas Review Press. A past Individual Artist Fellowship recipient from the State of Florida in both poetry and fiction, his poems and short stories have appeared in numerous journals, including The Georgia Review, The Iowa Review, MARGIE: The American Journal of Poetry, Michigan Quarterly Review, North American Review, The Paris Review, Pleiades, Ploughshares, Poetry, Prairie Schooner, Shenandoah, and The Southern Review, and in the anthologies Don’t Leave Hungry, Fifty Years of Southern Poetry Review (Arkansas) and High Five: An Anthology of Fiction from Ten Years of Five Points (Carroll & Graf). Mr. Gibson lives with his wife, Clorinda, in Florida.
 
Frescoes will be released by Lost Horse Press in February 2010.

Winner, Short List & Finalists of the 2009 Idaho Prize for Poetry

Winner

Frescoes by Stephen Gibson
 

Runners Up / Short List

Thunder Shakes the Snake: The Poetry of Cheng Hui by John Brady

Every Possible Blue by Matthew Thorburn
 

Finalists

Fur Traders on the Missouri by John Bensko

little lung damage by Esther Lee

We Are the Bus by Jim McKean

Animal Kingdom by Peter Munro

Radioactive City by Richard Robbins

Still-Life Breathing by Catherine Staples

Ragged Point Road by Joe Wilkins

Rust Fish by Maya Jewell Zeller

 

2008 Winner

Lucifer, a Hagiography, a poem by Philip Memmer

"Lucifer is on a non-linear trajectory, revolving its readers through the profane and the pious swinging door of heaven and earth. Memmer’s collection, with a few pitches and an unexpected saint we can all root for, has the power to provoke, enlighten and unsettle. The paradox remains the same—so much is at stake in these poems, and so little—but Memmer has managed to give us an original and remarkable passageway."

–M.L. Smoker, Final Judge for the 2008 Idaho Prize for Poetry
 

2008 Short List:

Troubled Tongues by Crystal Williams

Boys Whistling Like Canaries by Jorn Ake


2008 Finalists:

Kurosawa's Dog by Dennis Hinrichsen

The Natural Order of Things by Cathy Carlisi

The Chapel of Each Day by Tim Skeen

Beautiful in the Mouth by Keetje Kuipers

Egoli Exhaustress by Matthew Gavin Frank

Dear Weather Ghost by  Melissa Ginsburg

Basin and Plateau  by Ian Harris

The Promise of a Field by Jessica Grant Bundschuh

Labor in Vain by Landon Godfrey

Lantern Puzzle by Ye Chun

The Empty Notebook by Susan Thomas

Catch Light by Sarah O'Brien

Folly by David Axelrod

Radioactive City by Richard Robbins

2007 Winner

Friendly Fire, poems by Katrina Roberts

Friendly Fire, Katrina Roberts’ cycle of fifty-two sonnets, proves the durability and flexibility of the lyric today. A taut narrative scaffolding supports Roberts’ brief, searing meditations on family, farm labor, friendship, illness, parenting. Colloquial language lends verve. Literal images evoke the texture of farm life. Roberts explores abstraction (“Forgiveness”) with apt metaphor: “I shelter the grudge, build / a rustic cabin for it in my chest, pound rusty nails / in to anchor a porch where I sit glaring.” At the close of “Malignant,” the narrator asks a timeless question: “what lies in wait for us?” Read Friendly Fire for Roberts’ sensual and wise rendering of the here and now.

–Robin Becker, Final Judge for the 2007 Idaho Prize for Poetry
 

2007 Short List:

Past Eden by Alice Templeton

The Brother Swimming Beneath Me by Brent Goodman

2007 Finalists:

Self-Evident by Scott Hightower

Reflections in Blu by Carolyne Wright

Hyssop by Susanna Chidress 

Accidental Music By Anne Pitkin

Peacetime by Tim Skeen 

Fugitive Dust by Kathleen Winter

The Natural Order of Things by Cathy Carlisi 

Afraid the Future Burns by James Grabill 

Nowhere by W. T. Pfefferle 

Nervous Arrangement of Words Play House by Carol Guess 

Stay by Kathleen McGookey 

Hold Everything Down by William Notter 

The Stones We Bring With Us by Carlos Reyes 

2006 Winner

Retreats and Recognitions, poems by Grace Bauer

“All one has to do is read “Note From the Imaginary Daughter,” the first poem in Grace Bauer’s Retreats and Recognitions, and you’ll be caught in the grip of psychological drama and an evocative imagination that will make you want to read further. Bauer’s poems probe the dark landscapes between impression and apprehension, the past and its repetition though imaginative transformation, impulse and restraint. Her delivery is tough and terse; her imagery is fresh and often startling. There is experience and authority in her voice. She can be immensely witty, as in “Plot Lines,” where she improvises on the word, tale, or virtuoso as in her intricate sestina, “A Little Like Dorothy.” Succinct, like “Awakened By the Fall,” and evocative, like “Lunacy.” Her poems are poignant, intelligent, and believable. Poetry lovers, read this book!”

—Robert Pack, Final Judge for the 2006 Idaho Prize for Poetry
 

2006 Finalists:

No Sweeter Fat by Nancy Pagh

Union by Emily Raabe

Holding Time by Robert Carl Williams

Woman, Money, Watch, Gun by Carolyne Wright

2005 Winner

Thistle, poems by Melissa Kwasny

Final Judge 2005, Christopher Howell
 

2005 Finalists:

Landscape With Silos by Deborah Bogen

Instrumental Gods by Matt Donovan

Variations in the Key of Night by Stan Rubin

Other Americas by Richard Robbins

Sudden Anthem by Matthew Guenette

The Blue Cottage by James Brasfield

Hope by Judith Hemschmeyer

Difficult Beauties by Janet Wondra

So Many People Couldn’t Be Wrong by Laurie Blauner

Heat Lightning by Judith Skilman

This Brief Earth by Bern Mulvey

2004 Winner

Hurry Back, poems by Alvin Greenberg

Final Judge 2004, Marvin Bell
 

2004 Finalists:

Landscape with Silos by Deborah Bogen

The Devil’s Calligraphy by Matt Yurdana

American Common Prayers by Robert Brian Strong

These Blue Rooms by Laura Read

The Untested Hand by Richard Robbins

The School of Weeping by Jennifer Maier

Mister Five-by-Five by Philip Dacey

The Last Days of Elvis by D. James Smith

A Change of Maps by Carolyne Wright